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THE 



Early Baptists of Virginia. 



BY 



ROBERT BOYLE C. HOWELL, D.D., 



Pastor of the Second. Baptist Ch.ia.rcla, Richmond, "V"a. 



Author of " Terms of Communion," " The Deaconship," " The Way 

of Salvation," " The Evils of Infant Baptism," 

" The Cross," " The Covenants," &c. 



PHILADELPHIA : 

THE BIBLE AND PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

530 Arch. Street. 



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To AKCHIBALD' THOMAS, Esq., 

OF RICHMOND, VIRGINIA, 

HIS EARLY, AND DURING FORTY YEARS, HIS UNWAVERING 

AND DEARLY-LOVED FRIEND 

AND BROTHER IN &HRIST, 

THIS WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY 

The Author. 



Richmond, Virginia, 
June 10th, 1857. 



PREFACE 



The book which is here offered to the public is an 
enlargement of an Address delivered by Dr. Howell, 
in New York, in 1856, before the American Baptist 
Historical Society, and then published by the Society 
in pamphlet form. Soon after its publication, in 1857, 
he expanded it into a book, and a subsequent revision 
in 1864 gave it its present form. The interest which 
the original attempt to set forth the character and work 
of early Virginia Baptists excited, induces the hope 
that the present completer work may be received by 
Baptists everywhere as a valuable contribution to their 
history. It commends itself indeed to all students of 
history, and especially to the friends of religious lib- 
erty, as a careful delineation (drawn for the most part 
from original sources) of a part of one of the great 

movements of modern society. 

l* 



6 PR EFA CE. 

It is matter of regret that the learned and pious au- 
thor is not permitted to witness the heightened interest 
which the Baptists of Virginia are showing in the 
great names and deeds of their past. No one would 
have felt deeper sympathy with, or taken more earnest 
part in, the memorial-movement than he, and none 
would have kept a praiseworthy denominational pride 
more free from narrow-minded or merely worldly sec- 
tarian feeling. 

The book appears under the disadvantages of a post- 
humous work. If the author were living, he might 
choose to make additions or modifications; but his 
manuscript is printed as he left it, without alteration. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I 



INTRODUCTORY. 



Virginia Baptist History Unwritten — Injustice to the Memory of 
the Early Baptists, by both Friends and Enemies — Sources of 
Information regarding them — A Sketch of their Principles — 
Influence of these Principles upon other Denominations — Pre- 
sent condition of Baptists in Virginia — Design of the present 
Work 11 

CHAPTER II. 

BAPTIST ELEMENT AMONG THE EAELY COLONISTS OF VIR- 
GINIA. 

Intolerance in the Old World towards Baptist Principles — 
Increasing number of Baptists — The violence of their Perse- 
cutions — The New World an Asylum — The Presence of Bap- 
tists in other Colonies — The number and condition of Baptists 
in London and its Neighborhood — The Soldiers of Cromwell's 
army who escaped to Virginia — Virginia a place of conceal- 
ment for the Persecuted — The emigration of Baptists from 
Virginia to North Carolina 19 

CHAPTER III. 

CAUSES WHICH DELAYED THE ORGANIZATION OF BAPTIST 
CHURCHES IN VIRGINIA. 

The Government of the Virginia Colony — Rule of the London 
Company — The Episcopal Church established in the Colony 
— Laws enforcing religious conformity — Instances of perse- 
cution — Intimidation of the People. . . ... 34 



8 CONTENTS. 

. CHAPTEE IV. 

BAPTIST PRINCIPLES IN VIRGINIA FIRST EMBODIED IN VISI- 
BLE CHUBCHES. 

Mistakes on that Subject — Act of Toleration — Correspondence 
with English Baptists — Nordin and "White — Constitution 
of a Church at Burleigh, south of James River — Other 
Churches in its neighborhood Organized — Churches in Lou- 
don and Berkeley Counties, and other places in the northern 
part of the Colony — Loveall, Heaton, Garrard, and other 
Ministers — Causes of Baptist Impunity — Philadelphia As- 
sociation 49 

CHAPTER V. 

PBOGEESS OF BAPTIST PRINCIPLES IN VIRGINIA. 

Stearns and Marshall — Prevalence of Revivals — Ministers among 
the Converts — Multiplication of Churches — Organization of 
Associations — The Kehuki, the Charleston, the Sandy Creek, 
the Ketocton — The General Association of Virginia. . .63 

CHAPTER VI. 

CAUSES OF BAPTIST SUCCESS IN VIRGINIA. 

Character of the People — Demoralization of the State Church — 
Persecution of the Baptists — Their manner of Preaching. . 71 

CHAPTER VII. 

CONTROVERSIES OF THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

Predestination and Arminianism — Classes of Baptists in England 
— The Immigration to Virginia of both Classes — Their Dis- 
cussions here; their Division — Action regarding Reunion, of 
Ketocton Association, of Sandy Creek, of the General Asso- 
ciation, of Kehuki, of the General Committee — Reunion of the 
Churches 87 

CHAPTER VIII. 

EPISCOPACY AMONG THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

\ Episcopacy adopted in Virginia — Its previous prevalence among 
English Baptists — Discussion on the Subject — Institution of 
Apostles — Its Failure in Practice— Its Abandonment. . , . 100 



CONTENTS. 9 

CHAPTER IX. 

CAUSES OF THE REUNION AMONG THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF 
VIRGINIA. 

Discordances to be Overcome — Union in a few vital Principles — 
Ardent Christian Love — Their indiscriminate Persecution — 
The Political ends they mutually Sought 116 

CHAPTER X. 

EVILS THAT PREVAILED AMONG THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF 
VIRGINIA. 

The failure of their Educational Plans — Their mistakes regard- 
ing the use of Money as a means of extending Religion — 
Their conduct as to wealth and social Position — Their Ne- 
glect in regard to Books — Their carelessness in reference* to 
centres of Influence — Their Errors regarding the unaided 
force of Truth — Injudicious ordinations of Ministers. . . 122 

CHAPTER XI. 

POLITICAL ACTION OF THE GENERAL ASSOCIATION. 

Design of the General Association of Virginia — Its Declaration of 
principles on Political Subjects— Principles of the Primitive 
Christians on Religious Liberty— Of the English Baptists— Its 
memorials to the State Convention and Legislature — Memo- 
rials of the other Denominations — Its Commissioners — Bap- 
tist principles embodied in the Constitution of Virginia. . 139 

CHAPTER XII. 

INFLUENCE OF THE BAPTISTS IN FORMING THE STATE GOVERN- 
MENT OF VIRGINIA. 

Petitions to the Legislature from the General Association, and 
from the Hanover Presbyteiy and other Presbyterians — Me- 
thodist Petitions — Episcopal Claims— Jefferson's advocacy of 
Baptist Principles — The Marriage Law — Assessment Law — 
Law to establish Religious Liberty — Suspension of the sala- 
ries before paid by the State to the Established Clergy— The 
Vestry and Glebe Laws 157 

CHAPTER XIII. 

CHANGE IN THE POLITICAL ORGANIZATION OF THE EARLY 

BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 
Political and religious condition of the country during the pe- 
riod of the General Association — Causes of the anomalous 



10 CONTENTS. 

composition of the Association — Purposes to which it was 
Limited — In what respects it exceeded its Limits — The Re- 
sult of Union, both the adoption and abandonment of Epis- 
copacy — The extent of its achievements in its legitimate 
Sphere — Character of the General Committee — Its Declara- 
tion of Principles 175 

CHAPTER XIV. 

COMPARATIVE POSITION OF THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIR- 
GINIA. 

Proceedings of the General Committee — Survey of the Field — 
Episcopalians and Methodists against Religious Freedom — 
Middle ground of Presbyterians — Baptist hostility to any 
connection between Church and State 185 

CHAPTER XV. 

TRIUMPH OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA. 
Defeat of the " Bill establishing a Provision for the Teachers of 
Religion " — Passage of the " Law establishing Religious Free- 
dom — History of that Law — Its leading Provisions — Opinions 
of it entertained by Episcopalians and Methodists — Passage 
of the " Law Incorporating the Episcopal Church" — Repeal 
of that Law — Passage of the Law repealing all Laws in re- 
lation to the State Church, and by which it ceased to be the 
State Church — Sale of the Glebes — State of Religion in the 
Baptist Churches 200 

CHAPTER XVI. 

INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA IN THE 
FORMATION OF THE GENERAL GOVERNMENT. 

Incidental Influence — Direct Influence— Objections to the Federal 
Constitution by the General Committee — Correspondence with 
Washington — Amendment to the Constitution — Its Approval. 223 

CHAPTER XVII. 

DEFENCE OF THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

Their Position and Influence — Their Disinterestedness— Education 
of then- Ministers — Style and Elocution of their Sermons — 
Defence a duty of their Successors. 233 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 



CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY 



Virginia Baptist history unwritten. Injustice to the memory of the 
Early Baptists, by both friends and enemies. Sources of informa- 
tion regarding them. A sketch of their principles. Influence of these 
principles upon other denominations. Present condition of Baptists 
■in Virginia. Design of the present work. 

The pride of ancestry is a natural and commenda- 
ble passion. It is cherished with enthusiasm by both 
families and nations. JSTor is it surprising that into 
this spirit churches also warmly enter. He must be 
strangely constituted who feels no interest in the char- 
acter of his progenitors. In their honor, every man 
must be conscious that he is a partaker. From their 
shame, who does not involuntarily shrink ? To this 
general principle, in its application to churches, the 
Baptists of Virginia seem to have formed a marked 
exception. Never has a class of men existed who 
were more devoted, laborious, self-sacrificing, disinte- 
rested, and successful than were the fathers of this 
State. Not one century, however, has passed away, 
and already they are nearly forgotten, even by their 
own ecclesiastical children ! This injustice to a large 

11 



1 2 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 

and influential class of her people is not characteristic 
of Virginia as a State. " To make familiar to the 
popular mind whatever concerns her greatness and 
honor, every form of intellectual communication has 
been exhausted. Song and oration, history and novel, 
have been full of her glory. Her chivalry and her 
statesmanship, her arts and her letters, her power and 
her resources, have brought into requisition the talents 
and scholarship of her most illustrious sons. Volume 
after volume has been laid upon her literary altars, 
evincing the warmest devotion to the interests of her 
people, to her honor as a State, and demonstrating her 
distinguished position in the great American Confede- 
racy." Nor have any of the other leading denomina- 
tions been wanting in able, learned, and enthusiastic 
historians. The History of the Baptists of Virginia 
remains unwritten ! Poetry has not enshrined their 
exalted deeds. Literature has raised no worthy monu- 
ment to commemorate their name and virtues. 

It is true that Ashland and Leland, Edwards and 
Gano, Burkitt and Read, Backus and Benedict, Semple 
and Taylor, have written Chronicles of the Early Bap- 
tists of Virginia, but they are exceedingly brief, frag- 
mentary, and imperfect, and some of them have not even 
been published. Separately they are of little value ? 
and collectively they embody only a few of those facts 
which they found floating upon the surface of pub- 
lic knowledge, and even these they have thrown to- 
gether with little arrangement or discrimination. The 
injury done to their fame by this carelessness of their 
friends, has been greatly aggravated by the misrepre- 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 1 3 

sentations of their ecclesiastical opponents. Jarrett 
and Burke, White and Hawks, Foote and Meade, and 
a few others, have published Annals, more or less full 
and pretentious, of their several denominations. It is 
impossible, however, to read these works without feel- 
ing deep regret that the prejudices and aversion of 
these writers were permitted so fully to control all their 
statements regarding Baptist people, and Baptist prin- 
ciples. Their strange distortions of the facts in history 
are, it is believed, to be attributed rather to their ig- 
norance of the subject upon which it was their busi- 
ness to treat, than to any deliberate purpose to mislead 
the public mind. However this may be, these several 
works, so far as they refer to the Baptists, are wholly 
unworthy of their distinguished authors. 

Ample materials for a full and faithful history of 
the Baptists of Virginia are accessible. They can be 
obtained, however, only by laborious, persevering, and 
well directed investigations. To some of them refer- 
ence has already been made, in the several books indi- 
cated. Others will be collected in the form of pamph- 
lets; and the correspondence of the first churches, 
and especially those south of James River, with 
churches and brethren in the city of London ; and the 
records of various denominational proceedings, in Eu- 
rope and America. But the richest repositories, and 
those which still remain almost wholly unexplored, 
are the records of the Courts in the several counties, 
before which at various times they were arraigned on 
account of their religion, and by the orders of which 
they were fined, imprisoned, and otherwise severely 



14 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

punished ; their memorials and other communications, 
addressed to the State Convention, and subsequently 
to the General Assembly ; the " Complimentary An- 
swers," and other records, found in the Journals of 
these bodies ; the laws of the Colony and the State, as 
embodied in "'The Revised Laws of Virginia ;" " Hen- 
ing's Statutes at Large," "The Code of Virginia," 
and other books of like character ; " The Works of 
Thomas Jefferson," the papers of James Madison, 
many of which are published in " The Federalist ;" 
their several memorials to Congress, and its proceed- 
ings regarding them ; and their correspondence, official 
and unofficial, with Washington and Jefferson, during 
the period in which these gentlemen occupied the chair 
of President of the United States. The proper explo- 
ration of these sources of knowledge will open to the 
industrious investigator numerous others. With such 
materials, why may not some Baptist Irving, Prescott, 
or Bancroft soon produce a history worthy of the ex- 
alted character, and distinguished labors and successes, 
of the Baptists of Virginia? To write such a work 
is no part of my present purpose. Imperative profes- 
sional duties, which cannot be intermitted, leave me, 
even if I possessed the necessary genius and skill, no 
time for such an employment. All that I shall at- 
tempt will be to ascertain to what extent the Baptist 
element existed among the early colonists in Virginia ; 
the time and circumstances, under which Baptist prin- 
ciples were embodied among them in visible churches ; 
the subsequent extraordinary progress of these prin- 
ciples among the people; the principal causes that 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 1 5 

facilitated their advancement; the controversies that 
prevailed among the Baptists, and their harmonious 
adjustment; the political doctrines which they main- 
tained ; the influence they exercised in the formation 
of the government of the State, and of the United 
States ; and the position, social, intellectual, and moral, 
of their ministers and people in the Commonwealth. 
The period within which I shall confine myself, is that 
which commences with the settlement of the English 
Colony at Jamestown, and closes with the termination 
of the eighteenth century. 

One very important advantage contemplated in the 
execution of this purpose is the presentation of a 
sketch at least, and in a form indisputably authentic, 
of those peculiar principles by which in all ages and 
countries Baptists have been invariably distinguished. 
In our day, and in this country, so many of these 
great principles have been adopted by other denomina- 
tions, that the masses have ceased to remember that 
they ever were peculiarly Baptist, and are accustomed 
publicly to proclaim, that Baptists differ from others 
mainly, if not exclusively, as to "the mode, and sub- 
jects of baptism ; and perhaps in some unimportant 
matters relating to church organization and polity !" 
Nor have Baptists themselves cared to correct this in- 
jurious mistake! On the topics indicated, they do 
indeed stand alone ; but these form, in reality, a very 
small, and by no means the most important, part of 
their peculiarities. These doctrines may, it is be- 
lieved, be summarily set forth thus : 

The Bible is the only rule of faith and obedience ; 



16 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

regeneration and sanctification are the work of the 
Holy Spirit, in the heart of the believer; justification 
is exclusively by the grace of God, through faith in 
our Lord Jesus Christ ; holy living is the only con- 
clusive proof of real discipleship to Christ ; member- 
ship in the churches is confined strictly to the pro- 
fessedly regenerate ; all ministers are, as to office, the 
equals of each other; a church is a single congregation 
of believers, meeting in one place, maintaining uncor- 
rupted the doctrines and ordinances of the gospel; 
each individual church is free, no power, ecclesiastical 
or civil, outside of itself, having over it any authority 
or rule whatever : baptism and the Lord's Supper are 
always declaratory of the previous faith of the recipi- 
ent; the churches and the State are, as such, entirely 
separate, and neither can legislate for the other; every 
man has an inalienable right to perfect freedom of 
conscience and worship; and all are entitled to the 
full and equal protection of the government under 
which they live, in the exercise of all their rights, 
political, social, and religious. These, it is believed, 
embrace the outlines of the Baptist faith peculiarly. 
As a whole and in its several parts, it clearly bears the 
stamp and seal of Almighty God. He who embraces 
these views is, in principle, necessarily a Baptist. No 
church that departs from them can long remain evan- 
gelical. JSTo State that fails in its civil government to 
concede and act upon them, ever can be free. 

From the time of the subversion of the churches 
under the iron rule of Constantine the Great, to the 
period of the American revolution, all these principles 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 1 7 

were, with some slight modifications, repudiated and 
denounced by every prevalent class of Christians ; and 
the few who attempted to maintain them publicly did 
so at the risk of their reputation, their fortune, and 
their life. Many a martyr has expired on the gibbet 
and in the flames, whose only crime was the love and 
support of these great and fundamental principles ! 
The modifications alluded to had reference to the 
leaders in the Reformation of the sixteenth century. 
The Lutheran, the Calvinist, and the English Churches, 
and, through their overshadowing influence, some of 
the minor sects, nominally embraced some few of these 
tenets. They admitted in theory, but ignored in 
practice, the sufficiency of the word of God, as the 
only rule of faith and obedience ; they attributed the 
work of regeneration to the Holy Ghost, but main- 
tained that he accomplished it only through the ordi- 
nance of baptism; and they taught justification by faith 
alone; but the remainder they repudiated and op- 
posed. Especially did they denounce all those which 
guard the purity of the churches, and their Scriptural 
polity; their separation from the civil government; 
the freedom of conscience and worship ; and the right 
of every citizen, whatever his religion, to the full and 
equal protection of the government, in his person, pro- 
perty, and political immunities. These and such like 
doctrines were no less offensive to the Reformers, than 
they were to the Roman Catholics. The natural 
results have been, that all these churches have gradu- 
ally fallen back into nearly all the corruptions from 
which for a season they had escaped. The Presby- 



18 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

terian and Congregational Churches, bodies which 
sprang out of the German Reformation ; some classes of 
Episcopalians ; and the Methodist Church — an offshoot 
of English Episcopacy, have, in a great measure, been 
saved from a like deterioration only by their contact 
with the Baptist churches and people, and their practi- 
cal adoption of so many of the principles by which 
they have ever been distinguished. Their practice ap- 
proximates them to Baptists, and counteracts to a 
gratifying extent the evils inherent in their doctrinal 
principles. 

Every good man must rejoice that now at length 
the Virginia Baptist Fathers are beginning to attract, 
to a much greater extent than heretofore, the attention 
of the Christian world. Not much longer, it is hoped, 
will they remain without a memorial worthy of their 
exalted character. When such a memorial is written 
it will afford another eminent illustration of the 
power of simple gospel truth over the hearts of men ; 
its sufficiency to sweep away error, no matter how 
inveterate and venerable ; and of the facility, when 
left to its own influence, with which it moulds gov- 
ernments, ecclesiastical and civil, to the principles of 
freedom and justice. If in these pages I shall be able 
to contribute somewhat to such a work, my design will 
have been fully accomplished. 






EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GIXIA. 1 9 



CHAPTEE II. 

BAPTIST ELEMENT AMONG THE EAELY COLONISTS 
OF VIRGINIA. 

Intolerance in the Old World totvards Baptist principles. Increasing 
number of Baptists. The violence of their persecution. The Neto 
World an asylum. The presence of Baptists in the other colonies. 
The number and condition of Baptist Churches in London, and its 
neighborhood. The soldiers of Cromwell's Army who escaped to 
Virginia. Virginia a place of concealment for the persecuted. The 
emigration of Baptists from Virginia to North Carolina. 

The early colonists in Virginia were gathered from 
all classes of the people of England. That there were 
Baptists among them we have no direct official testi- 
mony, but the circumstantial proofs of their presence 
are full and conclusive. To evince the correctness of 
this statement, we will in the first place sketch the 
condition of religious society in the Old World, and 
especially with reference to Baptists and Baptist prin- 
ciples, for some time previous to the settlement of the 
Colony at Jamestown, and during the remainder 01 
the seventeenth century. 

The prevalence of Baptists in most of the nations of 
Europe, and especially in Britain, from the earliest 
times and in no very small numbers, will be questioned 
by no one who is at all familiar with the religious 
history of the land of our forefathers. The doctrines 
which they invariably held were equally well known. 
To the despots of the world, religious and political, 
they have ever been, and continue to be, immeasurably 



20 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

offensive. Hence, in Europe, Baptists have been de- 
nounced by all churches, Catholic and Protestant, and 
by all civil governments. By all, their doctrines have 
been authoritatively declared to be " blasphemy against 
God, and treason against the State." All, therefore, 
who dared to profess and practice them, were at once 
declared infamous, and placed without the protection 
of the laws, and with fire and sword hunted from the 
world. These facts are all fully attested by historians 
of every class, and no less clearly by their enemies, 
such as Fuller and Mosheim and Milner and Xean- 
der, than by their friends, Jones and Irving, Choules, 
Xeal, Anderson, Orchard, and Underhill.* The 
movements of the Baptists were traceable everywhere 
by the blood and gibbets and fires with which their 
persecutors pursued them. 

The civil commotions of England which immediately 
preceded the planting of the Virginia colony gave 
some respite to the Baptists ; their numbers, therefore, 
multiplied; and ever and anon churches sprang up, 
both in the capital and throughout the country. Of 
their character and numbers, and the spirit with 
which they bore their persecutions, the distinguished 
President of the Council of Trent bears unwonted tes- 
timony. He says, " If you behold their cheerfulness 
in suffering persecution, the Anabaptists run before all 
others. If you have regard to their number, it is like 



* Had the author been writing at the present day he would not 
have failed to insert the name of Dr. J. M. Cramp, whose " Baptist 
History " was issued by the American Baptist Publication Society 
after the preparation of the present work. — Editor. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 21 

that in multitude they would swarm above all others, 
if they were not grievously plagued and cut off with 
the knife of persecution. If you have an eye to the 
outward appearance of godliness, both the Lutherans 
and Zwinglians must needs grant that they far pass 
them." * " The Eoman Catholics," says Underhill, f 
" abhorred the Baptists, for if this heresy prevailed, a 
church hoary with age, laden with the spoils of many 
lands, and rich in the merchandise of souls, must be 
broken down and destroyed. The Protestants hated 
them, for if they triumphed, then their cherished head- 
ship, their worldly alliances, the pomps and circum- 
stances of their state religion, must be debased before 
the kingly crown of Jesus. The Puritans loathed 
them, for Baptist sentiments areixx) liberal for those 
who seek a papal authority over conscience, and the 
sword of the temporal power to enforce their ' Holy 
Discipline/ " They have all sought the destruction of 
the Baptists, "because from the beginning they have," 
as the great Locke justly affirms, " been the advocates 
and friends of absolute liberty ; just and true liberty ; 
equal and impartial liberty." 

In that age Papists and Protestants, who between 
them ruled the nations of Europe, furiously and by 
every possible means destroyed each other. Than 
these, never were enemies more bitter or relentless. 
In one thing however, and one only, they were 
agreed: they zealously united all their powers for 

* Religious Liberty, its Struggles and Triumphs.— Underhill, pp. 
88, 89. 
t Ibid. 201. (In substance.) 



22 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

the extermination of the Baptists. Not one of them 
which either party could reach ever escaped. In sev- 
eral of the treaties between the Catholic and Protest- 
ant States, special articles were inserted, as will be 
seen by examining their National Records, binding 
both parties to destroy, as far as possible, this hated 
class of men. Of the manner in which these engage- 
ments were fulfilled by the Protestants, D'Aubigne, 
the distinguished Historian of the Reformation, may 
be consulted. He says : — " Accordingly Luther, on 
his return from Wittenberg, extinguished in Germany 
the fanaticism of the Anabaptists." * The miseries, 
murders, and desolations, which accompanied this 
extinguishment, are detailed in the Dutch and other 
Martyrologies recently published in England by the 
Hansard Knollys Society. The Auto da Fes of the 
Catholics, in which so many Baptists perished, were 
perhaps not exceeded in atrocity by the fiendish 
butcheries which they suffered throughout Germany, 
at the hands of Luther and his disciples. 

Nor were the Protestants content when they had 
" extinguished in Germany the fanaticism of the Ana- 
baptists." They pursued them with cruel malignity 
into other countries. " The princes of Germany," 
says Dr. Cox,f " having discovered by means of inter- 
cepted letters, a secret correspondence between the 
German and English Anabaptists, wrote an epistle to 
Henry VIIL, containing a statement of their perni- 
cious doctrines, and warning him of danger likely to 

* Hist. Ref. Vol. 3, p. 305. 
f Life of Melancthon, p. 218. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 23 

result from their fanatical proceedings, unless prevented 
by a bold and timely interference." This "epistle 
of the princes," was, as we are specifically informed, 
advised by Luther, and written at their request by 
Melancthon. It was the united work of the leading 
German Protestants. Its eifect upon Henry is indi- 
cated by the proceedings of an Ecclesiastical Conven- 
tion, assembled in compliance with the king's order, 
in 1530, by Warham, Archbishop of Canterbury, in 
which many of the peculiar doctrines of the Baptists 
Avere formally condemned, and all of them pronounced 
by authority, " damnable heresies." Two proclama- 
tions immediately followed, directing the apprehension 
of all persons accused of being Baptists, and ordering 
the severest punishment to be inflicted upon all who 
should be convicted of that horrible crime. These 
processes were directed " against the malicious sects of 
heretics who, by perversion of Holy Scripture, do 
induce erroneous opinions, sow dissensions among 
Christian people, and finally disturb the peace and 
tranquility of Christian realms, as lately happened in 
some parts of Germany." * To what extent Henry 
and his successors on the British throne carried these 
persecutions, the prisons of the United Kingdom and 
the fires of Smithficld bear the amplest testimony. 

The sentiments and practice of Calvin and his disci- 
ples regarding the Baptists are well known to have 
been in perfect consonance with those of the German 
and English princes and divines. This is sufficiently 
evinced by the martyrdoms which by his concurrence 
* Struggles and Triumphs, &c, p. 92. 



24 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

were inflicted even in Geneva itself. The learned 
Boyle has justly said, " Not a Reformer of any emi- 
nence can be named who did not take part in this 
crusade [against the Baptists.] Luther, Melancthon, 
Zwingle, Bucer, Bullinger, Calvin, and others abroad ; 
at home, Cranmer, Latimer, Eidley, Philpot, Becon, 
Turner, and many others." * 

During the reign of Elizabeth, the Baptists in 
England, to defend themselves against the defamation 
of their enemies, ventured to publish an unpretending 
treatise, in which they summoned boldness to protest 
against " Persecutions for conscience' sake." In that 
work they maintained the following great principles : — 
" According to the word of God, Christ is the Supreme 
Head of his church; the Queen has no right to frame 
ecclesiastical laws, nor to appoint ministers of religion ; 
the Church ought to be composed of believers only ; 
the baptism of infants is unlawful." These annun- 
ciations shocked insufferably all parties. John Knox 
himself, the father of Scotch and British Presbyteri- 
ans, responded in a work entitled, "An answer to a 
great number of cavillations, written by an Anabap- 
tist Adversary." It must ever be regretted that a 
man, so excellent in many respects as was Knox, per- 
mitted himself in this volume to apply the bitterest 
epithets to those whom he chooses to regard as his 
adversaries, and to denounce them in the most unmea- 
sured terms. He closes his book in the following lan- 
guage, addressed to the writer of the treatises referred 
to : — " It is my full purpose to lay the same to thy 

* Dictionary, Art. Anabap. note B. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 25 

charge, if I shall apprehend thee in any common- 
wealth where justice against blasphemers may be 
ministered according to God's word." 

As on the continent of Europe Catholics and Pro- 
testants were agreed in persecuting the Baptists, so in 
Britain Episcopalians and Presbyterians, in all else 
irreconcilable enemies, concurred and co-operated in 
every possible measure for their extermination. Scotch 
Presbyters and English Bishops suffered at the hands of 
each other every possible injury which one could inflict 
upon the other. Many a time in our early years have 
we been moved to tears by the recital, in books skil- 
fully prepared for children, of the sufferings of Cove- 
nanters, but no allusions were made to the miseries 
these very Covenanters inflicted upon the Baptists of 
their day. We have wept in our youth over the hard 
fate of Cranmer and Ridley and Rogers and others, 
who under the reign of bloody Mary fell martyrs by 
the hands of the Papists. Who that does not know the 
facts would suspect that these were the very men who 
under the preceding reign were the most zealous and 
active in arresting Baptists and sending them to be 
burned at the stake. Neal's History of the Puritans * 
discloses many melancholy transactions, evincing their 
deep guilt as persecutors, and showing that the 
sufferings which at last overtook them bore many of 
the features of a just and righteous retribution. The 
formidable multiplication of Baptists about this period, 
to which we have before referred, and the rapidly 
growing popularity of their peculiar doctrines with 

♦Choules' edit. N. Y. Vol. 2, pp. 352—380. 
3 



26 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GIKIA. 

the masses of the people, greatly irritated the English 
government. Laws were therefore enacted, " Com- 
manding the most rigid search for them throughout 
the kingdom, with a view to the utter extermination of 
this hated sect." A "Commission" for the purpose 
was appointed, at the head of which stood the great 
names of Cranmer and Ridley, both of whom executed 
their bloody office, not only without relentings, but 
with singular ferocity. For proof and illustration of 
these facts, a single example shall suffice. Joan of 
Kent, a distinguished and noble lady, was the first 
Baptist arrested under this new authority. With very 
little ceremony or delay, she was convicted as a heretic, 
and sentenced to be burned alive at the stake. To 
consummate this horrible judicial murder, it was 
necessary, in compliance with the law, that the sentence 
of the court should be approved by the king. The 
amiable and youthful Edward was now upon the 
throne. The victim of these cruel prelates was well 
known to him as one among the best and most estima- 
ble of women. He therefore refused his assent. He 
would not sign her death warrant. Cranmer was de- 
puted by his associates to go to the young king, and 
to persuade him to comply with their decision. His 
arguments are recorded by the historian. Two of them 
may be mentioned. He assumed that Joan was a 
blasphemer, and maintained the justice of the sentence 
against her from the law of Moses, according to 
which all blasphemers were commanded to be stoned; 
and he enforced the obligation of Edward to approve 
their sentence, ordering her to the stake, by the con- 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 27 

sideration, that there are impieties against God which 
princes as his deputies are obliged to punish, among 
which blasphemy holds the highest place, just as the 
king's deputies are obliged to punish offences against 
the king's person. The young monarch, says Bur- 
net,* heard him long and patiently, and, "rather 
silenced than convinced " by his argument, " he set his 
hand to the warrant with tears in his eyes, telling 
Cranmer, that if he did wrong, as he signed it only in 
submission to his authority, he (Cranmer) should an- 
swer for it to God." And indeed, soon and sternly 
did he answer for it to God. 

John Rogers, too, and in this very case, was not less 
criminally implicated than Archbishop Cranmer. A 
distinguished gentleman, whose name is not mentioned 
by the annalists, shocked by the cruelty about to be 
inflicted upon a lady, illustrious in both birth and 
character, and well knowing the influence of Rogers 
with the governing powers, sought an interview with 
him, and earnestly entreated him to do what he could 
to save her life, or at least to procure for her a less 
dreadful death than burning at the stake. This proud 
priest evinced on the whole subject the coldest indiffer- 
ence, and in answer simply remarked, "The woman 
ought to be put to death ; " and " Burning alive is not 
a cruel death, but easy enough ! " Astonished at this 
answer, which showed so little regard for the sufferings 
of others, the gentleman striking the hand of Rogers, 
which up to that time he had held firmly grasped in 
his own, replied with great vehemence, " Well, proba- 

* History of the Reformation, vol. 2, p. 110. 



28 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

bly it may so happen that you yourself will one day 
have your hands full of this mild burning." And so 
indeed, in the providence of God, it did happen. 
These men died, but not one of them more unjustly 
nor more cruelly than did the multitudes of Baptist 
victims they had themselves so relentlessly destroyed. 

In the facts now submitted, we have a rapid sketch 
of the religious condition of the Old World, with 
reference to Baptist principles, for some time before 
and during the period of the planting of the Virginia 
Colony. Finding no place in Europe where they 
could be secure from the hand of violence ; groaning 
under oppressions of every kind ; hunted perpetually 
by the most malignant persecutors ; and a broad land 
in the New World open before them, having the aspect 
of an asylum, and inviting their residence, — is it rea- 
sonable to conclude that there were no Baptists among 
the thousands of colonists who so eagerly nocked to 
Jamestown ? 

The other American colonies, I observe in the 
second place, were well known to have contained Bap- 
tists, and in no very inconsiderable numbers, especially 
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania. 
Speaking of the German Baptists, from whom their 
British brethren did not differ in sentiment, and erro- 
neously imagining that they all sprang up with the 
great Christian leaders of the Reformation, Bancroft, 
who cherishes no sympathy with the Baptists' religious 
system, aside from its political aspects, in his History 
of the United States,* eloquently says: — "With 

*Vol. 2, p. 457. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 29 

greater consistency than Luther, they applied the doc- 
trines of the Reformation to the social positions of life, 
and threatened an end to priestcraft and kingcraft, 
spiritual dominations, tythes, and vassalage. The 
party ( English Baptists ) was trodden under foot with 
foul reproaches, most arrogant scorn; and its history 
is written in the blood of myriads of the German (and 
English) peasantry ; but its principles secure in their 
immortality, escaped with Roger Williams and his 
colony to Rhode Island, to witness that naturally the 
paths of the Baptists are paths of freedom, of plea- 
santness, and peace." In Massachusetts, where "the 
Lords Brethren" of the Congregationalists, copied so 
closely the spirit and conduct of " the Lo7'ds Bishops " 
of the English Episcopalians, the presence of the Bap- 
tists is testified by the persecuting edicts fulminated 
against them by the government, and the records of 
courts which dragged them to prison, harassed them 
with fines, and in the public places scourged them with 
stripes. Thence they fled to Rhode Island, to Penn- 
sylvania, and to both the Carolinas. Did none of 
them find their way to the secluded glens and sunny 
valleys of Virginia, the oldest, if not the best, of all 
the American colonies ? If not, how can we account 
for a fact so extraordinary ? 

The colony at Jamestown, it must be noticed in the 
third place, was mostly settled by immigrants from 
London and its neighborhood under the proprietorship 
and superintendence of "The London Company." 
The nobility and gentry, who formed a portion of their 

number so inconveniently large as to elicit on several 

3* 



30 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

occasions the complaints of the Colonial Governors, 
were ambitious especially to acquire for themselves 
large bodies of land in Virginia, such as those pos- 
sessed by the princes, dukes, and other aristocratic 
houses of "The Mother State." * Nor did they en- 
tirely fail of their purpose. Fairfax, Byrd, Spotts- 
wood, and many others, rejoiced in domains not inferior 
in extent to some of the German Principalities, and to 
several of the subsequent States, such as Rhode Island, 
Delaware, or New Jersey. These proprietors were 
anxious to settle their " Plantations " with a virtuous 
and industrious peasantry, into the religious opinions 
of whom, other things being satisfactory, they are not 
likely to inquire very closely. Private adventurers 
also and small capitalists came in large numbers, who 
sought a livelihood by other means than vassalage to 
the great. Through various authorities, such as Irv- 
ing, Underhill, and the Preface to the Philadelphia 
Confession of Faith, we ascertain that at the period of 
which we now write, there were certainly in the very 
places from which these immigrants came — London 
and its neighborhood — more than a hundred Baptist 
churches. Did the tide flowing to the west with so 
much power carry none of them to Virginia ? Such a 
conclusion is necessarily wholly incredible. 

On the restoration to the throne of England, we 
observe in the fourth place, of the second Charles, 
great numbers, as is well known, of Cromwell's vete- 
ran soldiers escaped to Virginia. Of these soldiers 
Dr. Williams says:* — "The period of the Common- 

*Life and Times of Baxter — in The Christian Eeview. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 31 

wealth and the Protectorate was the season in which 
our distinguishing sentiments, hitherto the hidden 
treasure of a few solitary confessors, became the pro- 
perty of the people. Through weary years they had 
been held by a few, in deep retirement, and at the 
peril of their lives. Now they began rapidly working 
their way, and openly into the masses of society. The 
army which won for Cromwell his ' crowning mercies/ 
as he called those splendid victories which secured the 
power of the Parliament, became deeply tinged with 
our views of faith and order. They were not, as mili- 
tary bodies have so often been, a band of mercenary 
hirelings — the sweepings of society, gleaned from the 
alehouse and the kennel, or snatched from the jail, 
and due to the gallows — but they were composed 
chiefly of substantial yeomanry, men who entered the 
ranks for principle rather than for gain, and whose 
chief motive for enlistment was that they believed the 
impending contest to be one for religious truth and for 
the national liberties ; a war in the strictest sense pro 
avis et focis. Clarendon himself allows their superi- 
ority in morals and character to the royalist forces. In 
this army the officers were many of them accustomed 
to preach ; and both commanders and privates were 
continually busied in searching the Scriptures, in 
prayer, and in Christian conference. The result of the 
Biblical studies and free communings of these intrepid, 
high-principled men, was that they became, a large 
portion of them, Baptists. As to their character, the 
splendid eulogy they won from Milton may counter- 
balance the coarse caricatures of poets and novelists, 



32 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

who saw them less closely, and disliked their piety too 
strongly, to judge dispassionately of their merits." 

These were the men so many of whom were Bap- 
tists, and who in numbers so large found a refuge from 
the malignity of kings and bishops in the Virginia 
colony. And in his History of the Protestant Episco- 
pal Church in Virginia,* has not Dr. Hawks his eye 
upon these very men when he says: — "The assem- 
blages, (in Virginia about this time — 1680), there 
is reason to believe, were perverted from religious to 
treasonable purposes;" that in these professedly reli- 
gious meetings "they concocted among the sectaries 
of their creeds the subversion of the government ;" 
and that four men of their number " were vilely hung 
as a warning to the remainder ! " These charges and 
proceedings are strongly suggestive. They resemble, 
to a painful extent, those had against Baptists in Eng- 
land, who, because they dared to express their own re- 
ligious opinions, were denounced as rebels, condemned 
as felons, and executed as traitors to their country. 

It is proper, in the fifth place, to state, which we 
do upon the authority of Graham, in his " History of 
the United States," f that there were, at a very early 
period, " Puritans " in the colony of Virginia ; and 
that there were Quakers there also, is shown by the 
law of " The Grand Assembly " adopted at its session 
of 1661, for the suppression in the colony of that 
eccentric sect. J Also that " Xon-conformists " were 

*Pp. 71, 72. f Vol. I. p. 219. 

i Hening's Statutes at Large, vol. I. Journals of the Legislature of 
1661. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE OINIA. 33 

present is evinced by similar laws in regard to them. 
And were there no Baptists there ? 

From Morgan Edwards and others, it may in the 
last place be stated, we learn some facts of unquestiona- 
ble truth, entirely to our purpose. It is of record, 
that as early as 1695, numerous Baptists were found 
residing in the lower and northern parts of North 
Carolina. Most of these, we are told, had gone over 
to that colony from contiguous portions of Virginia, 
to escape the intolerance of her ecclesiastical laws.* 

Let all the facts now submitted be weighed atten- 
tively ; the intolerance exercised towards their religion 
in the Old World ; their gradually augmenting num- 
bers ; the violence of the persecutions constantly 
waged against them in England ; their presence in the 
other American colonies; the number and condition 
of Baptist churches in London and its neighborhood, 
which supplied most of the colonists for Jamestown ; 
the large number of Cromwell's soldiers, so many of 
whom were Baptists, who on the restoration of Charles 
the Second escaped to this colony ; the asylum which 
Virginia might be presumed to afford to the perse- 
cuted ; and the emigration of the Baptists from this 
colony to North Carolina, and the conclusion to my 
mind is irresistible, that from its very beginning the 
Baptist element prevailed to no small extent among 
the colonists of Virginia. 

* Sketches of Virginia and North Carolina. Comer's Journal. 
Benedict, vol. 2, p. 97. 



34 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 



CHAPTER III. 

CAUSES WHICH DELAYED THE ORGANIZATION OP 
BAPTIST CHURCHES IN VIRGINIA. 

The government of the Virginia Colony. Rule of the London Company. 
The Episcopal Church established in the colony. Laws enforcing 
religious conformity. Instances of persecution. Intimidation of 
th^e people. 

A full century had passed away, from the time of 
the settlement at Jamestown, and Baptist principles 
still remained in Virginia, unembodied in any visible 
churches. Professors of that faith were unquestion- 
ably in the colony during all this period. They were 
not careless in their morals, nor forgetful of the 
value of their cherished doctrines. We have seen 
that essays had been made to hold religious assemblies, 
and that these assemblies had been charged with 
plotting treason against the government under the 
pretence of religion, had been violently dispersed, and 
their leaders hung as a warning to their associates. 
We have also seen that these people were probably 
Baptists, since the offences charged against them were 
the same alleged against Baptists in Europe, and for 
which they had there uniformly similarly been pun- 
ished ; that with such warnings and the laws enacted 
to repress all religious sentiments not in concord with 
the Church of England, some of 'which we shall 
presently consider, it is not surprising that they were 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 35 

so long deterred from attempting any open religious 
organizations* 

The colonists of Jamestown were of a character alto- 
gether different from those of Plymouth. They were, 
indeed, although from the same parent country, essen- 
tially, two races of men. The people of the north — at 
first known as Northern Virginia, but afterwards as 
Massachusetts — were Puritans of the Cromwellian 
school, and inveterate Congregationalists. Some of 
them, before they crossed the Atlantic, had fled from 
England, and had for years resided in Holland. They 
were rough, determined, intrepid, and their religion 
partook largely of the elements of pride and fanaticism. 
The people of the South were Cavaliers, soft, polished, 
courtly, proud in their manner ; loyal in the highest 
degree to the English government ; not austere ; nor 
scrupulous in their personal religion ; but more intol- 
erant of any departures from its external forms than 
were their Puritan neighbors. The men of the North 
abjured the Church of England, from whose power 
and tyranny they had with difficulty escaped. The 
men of the South profoundly venerated the Church of 
England, brought it with them to their western home, 
and cherished and guarded it with sleepless vigilance. 
In the South and in the North the people were equally 
solicitous as to the means of education. Next to their 
churches their schools shared most largely in their 
attentions. The first school of any pretensions which 
originated in Virginia — -and this was amply endowed 
with immense bodies of valuable land — was " The 
University of Henrico," which was located near the 



36 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

site now occupied by the city of Richmond. The next 
was " The Free Academy," which had its locality in 
Charles-city County. Both these schools were subse- 
quently merged in "The College of William and 
Mary," at Williamsburg, the capital of the colony. 
From that time forward, and up to a very recent 
period, that College was the pride and honor of Vir- 
ginia. It bears to-day, upon the catalogue of its 
graduates, a larger number of names distinguished in 
the various walks of life, than perhaps any other 
similar institution in America. Such were the people 
of the colony of Virginia. 

The first charter of the colony was granted by James 
the First, and was dated April 10th, 1606. It was, 
for the time being, the organic law. That part of the 
law which refers to religion is as follows : 

" We do specially ordain, charge, and require the 
said Presidents, and Councils, and the Ministers of the 
said several colonies respectively, within their limits 
and precincts, that they with all diligence, care, and 
respect do provide that the true word and service of 
God, and Christian faith, be preached, planted, and 
used, not only within every of the said several colo- 
nies and plantations, but also as much as they may 
among the savage people which do or shall adjoin unto 
them, according to the doctrine, rites, and religion now 
professed, and established within our realm of Eng- 
land ; and that they shall not suffer any person or 
persons, to withdraw any of the subjects or people in- 
habiting or who shall inhabit within any of the said 
several colonies and plantations from the same, or 






EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 37 

from their due allegiance to us and our heirs and suc- 
cessors, as their immediate sovereign under God ; and 
if they shall find within the said colonies and planta- 
tions any person or persons so seeking to withdraw 
any of the subjects of us, our heirs, or successors, or 
any of the people of these lands or territories within 
the precincts aforesaid, they shall with all diligence, 
him or them so offending cause to be apprehended, 
arrested, and imprisoned, until he shall fully and 
throughly reform himself; or otherwise, when the cause 
so requireth, that he shall with all convenient speed, 
be sent into our realm of England, here to receive con- 
dign punishment for his or their said offence or of- 
fences."* 

By this charter, it will be seen that the Episcopal 
Church was established as the religion of the colony ; 
that every subject or person was as much bound in al- 
legiance to the Episcopal Church, as he was to the 
government of the king ; that a withdrawal from the 
Episcopal Church and a revolt against the government 
are offences equally criminal ; that all who should be 
found seeking to withdraw persons from the doctrine, 
rites, and religion of the Episcopal Church should be 
apprehended, arrested, and imprisoned ; that the only 
condition of their release, should be their full and 
thorough reform ; that in case they could not establish 
satisfactorily their full and thorough reformation, they 
should be sent prisoners to England, there to receive 
condign punishment ; and that all Presidents, Councils, 
and Ministers were required with all diligence and 

* Herring's Statutes at Large, vol. 1, pp. 68, 69. 
4 



38 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

care to execute this law, in its full extent and meaning. 
With such a platform upon which to proceed in their 
legislation, it may readily be imagined that the details 
of Ecclesiastical law would be stringent to the last 
degree. This conclusion with respect to the charter 
is sustained by reference to " The Code of Sir Thomas 
Dale," designed to direct in the details of its adminis- 
tration, the first published for the government of the 
colony, and which bears date 1611. In regard to re- 
ligion, this Code provides as follows : 

" There is not one man nor woman in this colony, 
now present nor hereafter to arrive, but shall give up 
an account of his or their faith and religion, and repair 
unto the minister, that by his conference with them, 
he may understand and gather whether they have 
been sufficiently instructed and catechised in the 
principles and grounds of religion; whose weakness 
and ignorance, the minister finding, and advising them 
in love and charity to repair often unto him, to re- 
ceive therein a greater measure of knowledge, if they 
shall refuse to repair unto him, and he, the minister, 
give notice thereof to the governor, or the chief officers 
of that town or fort, wherein he or she, the parties so 
offending shall remain, the governor shall cause the 
offender for the first time of refusal, to be whipped ; 
for the second time, to be whipped twice, and to ac- 
knowledge his fault upon the Sabbath-day in the con- 
gregation ; and for the third time, to be whipped every 
day, until he hath made the same acknowledgment, 
and asked forgiveness for the same, and shall repair 
unto the minister to be further instructed as aforesaid ; 






EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 39 

and upon the Sabbath when the minister shall cate- 
chise, and demand any question concerning his faith 
and knowledge, he shall not refuse to make answer, 
upon the same peril."* 

The very severity of these, and similar laws which 
continued to be enacted during the administration of 
the government of the colony by " The London Com- 
pany," was perhaps their best antidote. They were in- 
deed promulgated and constantly reiterated in the hear- 
ing of the people in the "towns and forts," but in their 
extreme features they were seldom executed. The in- 
tentions of their rulers were, no doubt, sufficiently ear- 
nest, but they were, to a great extent, frustrated by the 
circumstances of society and the temper of the people. 

These laws of the Protestant colony of Virginia 
contrast strangely, in some respects, with the laws of 
the Roman Catholic colony of Maryland on the same 
subject. By a law of the Maryland Colony of 1649, 
it was provided : 

"That no persons professing to believe in Jesus 
Christ, should be molested in their religion, or in the 
free exercise thereof, or be compelled to the exercise of 
any other religion against their consent, so that they 
be not unfaithful to the Proprietary, or conspire 
against the civil Government ; that any person molest- 
ing another in respect of his religious tenets should pay 
triple damages to the party aggrieved, and twenty 
shillings to the Proprietary ; that those reproaching 
any with opprobrious names of religious distinction, 
should forfeit ten shillings to the person injured." 
*Laws, &c, Strachey, London, 1612. 



40 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

Had this law terminated here, it would have been 
admirable indeed ; but unhappily it did not. It goes 
on to enact, — 

" That any one speaking reproachfully against the 
Blessed Virgin, should forfeit ten pounds ; but that 
blasphemy against God should be punished with 
death."* 

In Virginia, no religious offence, as such, was 
punished with death, but religious departure from the 
Church was treason against the State, and that was 
punished with, and non-conformity was visited by, a 
penalty little less severe, indefinite imprisonment, or 
banishment from the country, or transportation to 
England to receive "condign punishment." As to 
liberty of conscience and freedom of worship, Catho- 
lic Maryland was much more liberal than Protestant 
Virginia. 

Fortunately for the Virginia colony, the Code of a 
Governor did not govern his successor, and Governor 
Dale was succeeded by men who regarded corporal 
punishment in another light, and were not so ready to 
resort to the lash on every occasion. As in the 
government of England for many centuries, the laws 
of a king died with him, and were not in force unless 
re-enacted by his successor, so with the Governor of 
Virginia. Every new Governor invariably brought 
with him his own " Code/' which wholly superseded 
that of his predecessor. This continued to be the 
rule even after the organization of "The Grand As- 
sembly." "It was a mode of legislation, "says Hen- 

* Benedict's Hist. Bapt. Edit. 1813, vol. 2, p. 22. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 41 

ing, speaking of that body * peculiar to those times, 
to repeal all former laws, and re-enact them in the very 
words in which they were originally passed." The 
attention given to ecclesiastical aifairs by the governors 
we have already seen. " The Grand Assembly was 
even more prolific than they were, of laws on the same 
subject. On this topic the learned jurist just named 
remarks : " If we may judge by the subject matter of 
such Acts as have been preserved, the legislature was 
exclusively occupied in promoting a uniformity to the 
doctrines and discipline of the Church of England, 
and in enforcing attendance at church, and other re- 
ligious exercises."f We may here glance rapidly at 
some of these proceedings. % 

By the Act of 1623, it was provided, that "In 
every plantation or settlement, there shall be a house or 
room, set apart for the worship of God," which wor- 
ship was commanded and required to be "strictly in 
accordance with the constitution and canons of the 
Church of England." To administer in these several 
places, clergymen were employed by the government 
of the colony, and their salaries paid by a tax upon 
the people, levied and collected, as were the taxes for 
other colonial purposes. By the Act of 1643, entitled 
" An Act to preserve the purity of doctrine and unity 
of the Church," it was required, that "All ministers 
shall be conformable to the Orders and Constitution of 
the Church of England ; that no others shall be per- 
mitted to teach or preach, publicly or privately," and 

* Statutes at Large, vol. 1, p. 120. f Sta tutes as above. 

% Vide Statutes, &c., vol. 1, throughout. 

4* 



42 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

that "the Governor and Council shall take care that 
all non-conformists depart the colony with all conve- 
niency." The Legislature during the same session, 
adopted the "Statute of England" of 3d James I, 
"Concerning Popish Recusants/' and put it into full 
and vigorous force in Virginia. During the session of 
1657, laws of the severest character were enacted for 
the suppression of the Quakers in the colony. In the 
legislative attention of the session of 1661, "The 
Church" shared very largely. The first nine of its 
Acts had exclusive regard to ecclesiastical interests. It 
was provided in these laws that a church should be 
built and a vestry appointed in each parish in the 
colony; that "a Glebe with convenient houses built 
thereon" should be purchased by the colony for the 
minister of each parish ; that ministers should receive 
for their salaries each, beside the glebe and its pro- 
ducts, eighty pounds sterling — about four hundred dol- 
lars annually, which salary was by subsequent enact- 
ments changed to sixteen thousand pounds of tobacco, 
to be levied by the vestry of each parish respectively 
upon the citizens of that parish, and collected as 
other taxes; that no minister should preach without 
ordination by a Bishop in England ; that any person 
not so ordained attempting to preach, publicly or pri- 
vately, should be silenced by the Governor and Coun- 
cil, and if he persisted should be banished from the 
colony,; that no other catechism should be taught but 
that contained in the Book of Common Prayer; that 
on every Sunday each person not necessarily confined 
at home, should attend the parish church of his own 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 43 

parish, under a penalty for failure of fifty pounds of 
tobacco; and that each non-conformist should pay 
twenty pounds sterling — about a hundred dollars — for 
each month's absence from the regular established 
Church of the parish in which he resided; and if 
absent a year, should be apprehended, and required 
to give security for his good behaviour, which, if 
he failed to do, he should be imprisoned until he 
conformed to the Church, or gave the security de- 
manded.* 

By these and other similar Ecclesiastical laws, the 
people of Virginia were governed up to the time of 
the American Revolution, if we except the brief period 
of Cromwell's Protectorate, during which the affairs of 
the Church were taken out of the custody of the Legis- 
lature, and placed in the hands of the Parishes ; and 
the ameliorating influence of " The Act of Toleration," 
which never was published at length in the colony, 
and therefore to the masses of the people, was for 
many years wholly unknown.f 

Under the government which we have now de- 
scribed, what could the Baptists of Virginia do ? Was 
any movement looking towards a denominational or- 
ganization possible? Apologists for the Episcopal 
Church in Virginia, such as Dr. Hawks and others, 
have tolcl us that these and similar laws were inopera- 
tive, and remained in the Statute books " a dead let- 
ter." It is also intimated that persecutions did not 
commence until near the close of the colonial period, 

* Journals of the Legislature, passim. Hening, &c., vols. 1, 2. 
f Hening, &c., pref. vol. 1, p. 15. 



44 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA, 

when they were provoked by the agitations and insub- 
ordination of the Baptists. ~No man reveres more sin- 
cerely than I do the memory of the early colonists of 
Virginia. I would deal with their faults with all kind- 
ness. But to conceal the truth, even were it lawful, is 
both useless and impracticable. History speaks in a 
tone not to be suppressed, and she affirms in unmistak- 
able language, that "persecutions for conscience" were 
rife in Virginia from the very beginning of its govern- 
ment. Who, for example, were those " inhabitants of 
Montserrat," a place in the West Indies, of whom the 
Jesuit White speaks in his " Pilgrims of Maryland," 
and of whom he incidentally says, under date of 1634, 
" They were driven from Virginia for their religious 
opinions." * Have we not already seen that four 
men, who had been soldiers of Cromwell, were hung, 
evidently for no other offence than their religious opin- 
ions ? Was not the penalty of the law inflicted to the 
letter, as Hening informs us, upon a citizen in 1640, 
whose name he does not record ? Did not Stevenson 
Reek suffer, in 1643, the most revolting severities for 
religious offences ? He stood in the pillory two hours 
with a label on his back, paid a fine of fifty pounds, 
and was imprisoned at the pleasure of the Governor." f 
Were not the Congregational ministers, Thompson, 
Knolles, James, and Harrison — sent as Missionaries to 
Virginia by the General Court in Boston — banished in 
1648 from the colony? and were not their congrega- 
tion, though meeting only in private, violently broken 
up, dispersed, and some of them imprisoned during in- 

* Annals of Annapolis, p. 23. f Burke, vol. 2, p. 57. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 45 

definite periods ? * And James Pyland, the member 
from Isle of Wight County, what was " his the said 
Pyland's blasphemous Catechism/' for the issuing of 
which he was expelled in 1652 from the " House of 
Burgesses?" f Was not the member from Norfolk also 
expelled from the "House of Burgesses" in 1663, on a 
religious account ? % And upon what authority were 
Baptists in later years apprehended, imprisoned, fined, 
and tortured? Would to God these laws had re- 
mained " a dead letter on the Statute book." But 
alas ! the sufferings and groans and blood of many a 
victim, clamoring in our ears, reveal on the part of the 
rulers of those times, not the soft forbearance claimed 
for them by partial and interested apologists, but a re- 
lentless cruelty, and deeds of misery and death ! 

Some of the laws enacted by the colonial govern- 
ment seem, as far as we can now understand them, to 
have been especially designed for the suppression of 
Baptist principles. The law of 1661-2, for example, 
was as follows : 

" Whereas, many schismatical persons, out of their 
averseness to the orthodox established religion, or out 
of the new-fangled conceit of their own heretical inven- 
tions, do refuse to haye their children baptized ; Be it, 
therefore, enacted by the authority aforesaid, that all 
persons that in contempt of the divine- sacrament of 
Baptism, shall refuse when they may carry their 
child [children] to a lawful minister of that county to 

* Holmes'Annals, p. 289 -Savage's Winthrop, p. 334. 
f Herring's Stat, at Large, vol. 1, pp. 374, 375. 
% Hening ut Supra, vol. 2, p. 198. 



46 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

have them baptized, shall be amerced two thousand 
pounds of tobacco ; half to the informer ; half to the 
public." * 

Study this enactment. It is instructive. It might 
have embraced Quakers, some of whom are known to 
have been in the colony, but that it had special regard 
to Baptists no one can reasonably doubt. The pre- 
amble declares, that there were many persons in Vir- 
ginia that refused to have their children baptized; 
that they did not neglect merely, but refused to have 
that ordinance administered to their little ones ; and 
that their refusal was based upon principle, which the 
act pronounces to have been " averseness to the ortho- 
dox established religion," " or the new-fangled conceit 
of their own heretical inventions." These opposers of 
infant baptism were not infidels; they were not pro- 
fane men ; they were not people who were careless of 
their religious obligations; they were intelligent, 
thinking, conscientious Christians; such as the law 
pronounces stubborn heretics, pestilential schismatics, 
averse to Episcopacy, and led in their religion by their 
own heretical inventions. Plainly also they were not 
men of little consideration, since, in that case, legisla- 
tive enactments regarding them would have been 
thought superfluous ; but they were men of such cha- 
racter, and influence in society, as to threaten by their 
example, in the opinion of the Legislature, the safety 
of the established religion. The government, there- 
fore, believed it necessary to interpose, and by fines 
and denunciations to overbear their consciences, and 
* Hening's Stat, at Large, vol. 2, pp. 165, 166. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 47 

to compel their conformity to the Church of Eng- 
land. 

The facts now before us show that, by the laws of 
the colony, any persons daring to teach the people 
doctrines or practices, other than those prescribed by 
the Church of England, were to be imprisoned until 
they should be reclaimed, or if they could not be re- 
claimed, sent to England for punishment ; that every 
person in the colony, male and female, was obliged 
when called upon to go to the minister, and give a 
true statement of his or her faith j to attend the Epis- 
copal service every Sabbath day; and to be present, 
and answer publicly, whenever the minister should 
" catechise ; " that no minister not conformed to the 
Church of England, should, under the severest penal- 
ties, be permitted to teach or to preach, publicly or 
privately ; that every colonist should pay his assessed 
proportion of the taxes for the support of the Episco- 
pal Church ; that no catechism should be taught but 
that contained in the book of Common Prayer ; that 
any person not conforming to the Church, absence 
from the services of which was to be the proof, was 
to pay a fine of a hundred dollars a month, and if not 
reclaimed within twelve months, was to be imprisoned 
until he did conform, and give the Church security 
that he would maintain his conformity ; and every one 
was compelled by fines to have his children baptized. 
These, and similar laws, the Governor, the Council of 
State, and the ministers of religion, all ready enough 
to it, were enjoined to execute; and to make the 
punishments sure, informers were suborned by the 



48 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

payment to them of half the fines imposed upon offen- 
ders. 

Under the operation of such laws ; watched by vigi- 
lant enemies on every side ; no minister, known to be 
such, permitted to reside in the colony, is it surprising 
that in Virginia no Baptist churches were organized, 
and no gospel ordinances administered ? Still, though 
overborne and suppressed for a hundred years, Baptist 
principles were " secure in their own immortality ; " 
and were, even in Virginia, silently, unobtrusively, 
but effectually laying a foundation for subsequent 
glorious triumphs. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 49 



CHAPTER IV. 

BAPTIST PRINCIPLES IN VIRGINIA FIRST EMBODIED 
IN VISIBLE CHURCHES. 

Mistakes on the subject. Act of Toleration. Correspondence with 
English Baptists. Nordin and White. Constitution of a church 
at Burleigh, south of James River. Other churches in its neigh- 
borhood organized. Churches in Loudon, Berkeley, and other 
places in the northern part of the colony. Loveall, Heaton, Gar- 
rard and other ministers. Causes of Baptist impunity. Phila- 
delphia Association. 

The dreary night which had brooded so long in un- 
broken silence over Virginia began at last to recede. 
Approaching day was visible in the spiritual horizon. 
The Baptists of the colony shook off their slumbers, 
and awoke to cheerfulness and hope. It is not known 
that any Baptist ministers were in the colony either 
as residents or visitors. There were, however, men of 
intelligence, influence, and energy, who were not con- 
tent to remain longer inactive. The names and posi- 
tion of these men cannot now be known, but their 
noble deeds have become immortal. We know only 
that they all resided on the south side of James River. 
After the necessary consultation, they decided to move 
together in the cause of Christ, which they did vigor- 
ously and successfully. One, and another, and an- 
other Baptist Church sprang up in the colony, like so 
many camp fires upon the hills, whose light penetrated 
in all directions the surrounding gloom. 



50 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

Very little attention has been given by Baptist 
writers to the circumstances under which Baptist prin- 
ciples in Virginia were first embodied in visible 
churches. The accounts of Pedobaptists, from which 
mainly the reading world have derived their impres- 
sions are singularly erroneous and distorted. The 
statements of Dr. Hawks in his " History of the Pro- 
testant Episcopal Church in Virginia," may be taken 
as an example. This learned gentleman tells his 
readers that the first Baptist emigrants to Virginia ar- 
rived in 1714; that no churches appeared until 1765, 
fifty-one years afterwards ; that these churches sprang 
up in Amelia County ; and that their preachers came 
from the North.* It is very well known by all who 
have taken the trouble to inquire, and as we shall pre- 
sently see, that in 1765 there were in Virginia more 
than fifty Baptist churches; that in Amelia County 
Baptist principles did not at first prevail; and that 
their early preachers came, not from the North, but 
from England, and were sent out by Baptist churches 
in the city of London. These and other like falsifica- 
tions of history arise, as is presumed, not so much from 
any wish on the part of the writers to misrepresent 
facts, as from their indisposition to seek the necessary 
information, and their general carelessness on the 
whole subject. Doubtless, they had somewhere read 
or heard such reports, and without examination re- 
corded them as true. Whether, however, these mis- 
representations were the results of ignorance, of care- 
lessness, or of design, they ought long since to have 
*Hist. Prot. Epis. Ch. in Va., pp. 120, 121. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 51 

been exposed and corrected. No candid or ingenuous 
Pedobaptist desires to be led astray by false Jiis- 
tory. Have Baptists had in their own ranks none 
who cared for the memory, or had sufficient courage 
to vindicate the honor of the fathers? Why then, 
up to this hour, have they remained uncontradicted 
and unrefuted ? Which of all the numerous and able 
Baptist writers that our country has produced, has 
even reviewed any of these volumes of which we com- 
plain, or in any other manner sought to turn aside 
their injurious representations ? Not one ! On the 
contrary, while some have amused themselves with 
these fables, others have repeated them as true, and 
thus given them an authority with the masses which 
otherwise they never could have acquired. 

" The Act of Toleration " was adopted by the Bri- 
tish Parliament, during the first year of the reign of 
William and Mary. The colonial authorities earnestly 
maintained that this act was not operative in Virginia. 
Therefore, it was kept as much as possible from the 
knowledge of the people. In this construction several 
of the other colonies concurred. The court in New 
York, for example, as may be seen in the case of Rev. 
Mr. Mackamie, a Presbyterian minister, declared that 
it was inoperative in America ! 

The Act of Toleration, as it stands upon the English 
Statute book, is entitled " An Act for exempting their 
Majesties' Protestant subjects, dissenting from the 
Church of England, from penalties of certain laws." 
That it was not " operative " in the American colonies, 
was a monstrous pretension, needless now to be dis- 



52 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

cussed. Strictly, however, if interpreted according to 
its terms, it could not extend to Baptists, either in 
Great Britain or America, since Baptists, although 
"subjects of their Majesties," and "dissenting from 
the Church of England " were not, never had been, and 
are not now Protestants. The government, however, 
of both countries, chose to place them in that category. 
The law, therefore, was evidently designed to embrace 
them, and that it did not was the mistake of those by 
whom it was framed. Baptists needed too much the 
indulgence, imperfect and humiliating as it was, which 
it offered, to explain or object. Although never pub- 
lished in Virginia, its existence was necessarily ad- 
mitted, but always in an ambiguous manner. The 
facts in this case may be stated on account of their sin- 
gularity. 

The first acknowledgment in Virginia of the law in 
question occurred ten years after its adoption by the 
Mother Country, and then only as a proviso of " An 
Act entitled an Act for the more effectual suppressing 
of blasphemy, swearing, cursing, drunkenness, and 
Sabbath-breaking," adopted by the Legislature during 
its session of 1699. This is the relation in which it is 
introduced. That Act concludes as follows : — " Pro- 
vided always, that if any person or persons, dissenting 
from the Church of England, being every way quali- 
fied according to an Act of Parliament made in the 
first year of our sovereign Lord, the king that now is, 
and the late Queen Mary of blessed memory, entitled 
1 An Act for exempting their Majesties' subjects, dis- 
senting from the Church of England, from penalties of 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 53 

certain laws/ shall resort and meet at any congrega- 
tion or place of religious worship, permitted, and 
allowed by the said Act of Parliament, once in two 
months, that then the said penalties and forfeitures, 
imposed by the Act [this act for the more effectual 
suppressing of blasphemy, swearing, cursing, drunken- 
ness, and Sabbath-breaking, as above, and] for refu- 
sing to resort to their parish church or chapel as afore- 
said, shall not be taken to extend to such person, or 
persons." In this manner did the Legislature seek to 
attach a disgrace to all who should attempt to avail 
themselves of " The Act of Toleration." In the fifth 
Revisal of the Laws of Virginia, which was made in 
1705, in Act 30th the Law of Toleration is referred to 
in terms still more slight and ambiguous. This was 
"An Act for the suppression of vice." It appears 
only by an allusion in a parenthesis. Those interested 
were left to discover, as best they could, the privileges 
to which by that Act they were entitled.* 

Beverly, in his " History and Present State of Vir- 
ginia," explains the provisions of the Law of Tolera- 
tion. He says, "The people are generally of the 
Church of England, which is the religion established 
by law in the country, from which there are few dis- 
senters. Yet liberty of conscience is given to all other 
congregations pretending to Christianity, on condition 
they submit to all parish duties." f We ought not to 
dismiss this subject without ascertaining to what 
extent, and upon what conditions, as prescribed and 

* Foote's Sketches of the Presbyterian Church in Virginia, pp. 48, 49. 
t Edit. 1705, Book 4, Part. I chap. 7, p. 27. 
5* 



54 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

regulated by " the Act of Toleration/' liberty of con- 
science " was conceded to Protestants dissenting from 
the Church of England. This famous law demanded 
that all such Dissenters should pay their full propor- 
tion for the support of the parish ministers of the 
Establishment, after which they might support their 
own pastor, if they had one, and were able to do so ; 
that they should receive marriage at the hands of the 
Episcopal minister, and in the parish church, no other 
being lawful or allowed to any one ; that they should 
pay all parish rates for building and repairing the 
State Church meeting-houses, and for purchasing, re- 
pairing, and improving the glebes, and after they had 
done this, they might if they could, build meeting- 
houses of their own ; that these conditions fulfilled, if 
they could obtain a license for a place as a house of 
worship, they might meet there and worship God ; 
that if their minister could procure from the Govern- 
ment a license to preach at that place, he might 
preach there, but nowhere else; and that as many 
persons as could prove that they attended such preach- 
ing once in two months (by a subsequent amendment, 
once a month) they were on these conditions and to 
this extent, exempt from the pains and penalties de- 
nounced in previous laws against all those Protestants 
who could not conscientiously conform to "the con- 
stitution and canons, the doctrines and services, of the 
Church of England!" Such was toleration in Eng- 
land, and when at last it was admitted to be operative, 
such was toleration in Virginia under this statute of 
William and Mary ! Such was the extent of " liberty 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 55 

of conscience " in the best and most liberal days of 
Episcopal rule in the colony. 

These miserable and reluctant concessions were mea- 
ger indeed ; still they were an advancement in the di- 
rection of "Religious Freedom." They were, there- 
fore, with all their humiliating conditions, accepted by 
the people, who were thereby emboldened, not only to 
express their religious sentiments freely, but also to 
carry them out in their public action as far as these 
provisions permitted. Now they could appear as 
they supposed, in their true character, without the risk 
of imprisonment, fines, and banishment from the coun- 
try which contained all that was dear to them upon 
earth. The several denominations then existing in 
the colony, oppressed, persecuted, and scattered, natu- 
rally sought intercourse with those of their own faith. 
The Baptists especially were encouraged to undertake 
such measures as seemed to them best, looking to the 
organization in Virginia of churches upon the apos- 
tolic model. 

Another consideration had especial influence with 
them in some quarters. In Isle of Wight, Surry, and 
other South-eastern counties, large numbers of per- 
sons cherishing Baptist sentiments, found themselves 
together. This is the region from which, in previous 
years, as we have before seen, upon the authority of 
Historical Sketches, by Morgan Edwards, numerous 
families, to escape the heartless oppressions of the 
State Church, had emigrated to North Carolina. Re- 
fering to the subject, Dr. Benedict says: — "William 
Sojourner, a most excellent man, and useful minister, 



56 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

removed with many of his brethren from Burleigh, in 
Virginia, and settled on Kehuki Creek, in the county 
of Halifax, and the same year planted the church in 
that place." He further says: — "Most of the first 
Baptist churches in North Carolina are said to have 
emigrated from Burleigh in Virginia." * 

This oppression and exodus may be accounted for 
perhaps, by the fact, that in that part of the colony were 
erected many large and elegant "colonial churches," 
some of which were the most expensive and magni- 
ficent buildings of the kind then in America. The 
ruins of these buildings, and especially of one now in 
the woods near Smithfield, in Isle of Wight, even at 
this day excite the amazement of all who visit them. 
To erect these " splendid structures," which doubtless 
pleased the taste of some clergymen, younger sons of 
noble families in England, all the people, and Bap- 
tists as well as others, were obliged to pay heavily, 
and worship in them afterwards. They resolved not 
to do this, and as the only alternative, left the colony. 
Many, however, still remained, who having no minis- 
ters to suggest measures, or to lead the way, assembled 
of their own accord to advise with each other as to 
what ought to be done to supply their spiritual wants. 
These men were not, as Dr. Hawks asserts, a company 
of emigrants from England, but residents of the coun- 
try, of long and influential standing. After frequent 
and prayerful consultations they decided to address a 
joint communication, not to their friends in the north- 
ern colonies, but to their friends in England, and 
* History of the Baptists, vol. 2, p. 97. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 57 

especially in the city of London, where at that time 
Baptist churches abounded, having emerged from the 
oppressions under which until the administration of 
Cromwell, they had unceasingly labored. Speaking of 
these times, Mr. Davis, in his " History of the Welsh 
Baptists," * says, " God gave the Baptists a respite 
from persecution, and they were allowed to meet to- 
gether, and to devise plans for the advancement of the 
Redeemer's Kingdom. As early as 1653, they were 
emboldened to meet in an Association at Abergavenny, 
Wales, where missionary arrangements, designed to be 
of a permanent character, were inaugurated." The reign 
of the second Charles, however, suspended all their 
public efforts, and during the bitter persecutions which 
followed, many of their ministers and leading members 
either fled from the country or died in prison." 

The first year of the reign of William and Mary 
was, as we have seen, rendered memorable by the 
adoption of the Act of Toleration. The Baptists were 
again somewhat relieved, and in 1689 met in a great 
Association in the city of London. One hundred and 
seven churches, as appears from Rippon's Register, f 
were present by their messengers. The proceedings of 
each day are briefly recorded. Here they renewed 
their missionary organization, and adopted measures 
for more systematic and effectual labors. This was the 
body addressed by the citizens of Virginia, and which 
they earnestly solicited to send them Baptist ministers 
for their instruction and guidance. Whether the cor- 
respondence, official and private, then had between 

* Pp. 85, et seq. f Passim. 



58 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

these parties, can now be found, is perhaps questiona- 
ble. If it can be brought to light, — and it is hoped 
that an earnest effort will be made for its discovery, — 
it will throw a flood of light on the history of " The 
Early Baptists of Virginia." This correspondence 
occurred in 1713. The solicitations of the Virginians 
were kindly entertained by their friends in the British 
metropolis, and in May 1714, they ordained two 
of their own number, Robert Nordin, and Thomas 
White, and sent them as missionaries to the colony. 
Mr. White died on the passage hither, and was buried 
at sea. Mr. Nordin in due time arrived, and com- 
menced his labors. These ministers were soon after 
followed by others, sent out and sustained by the same 
churches in London and its neighborhood, among 
whom, as faithful laborers in South Eastern Virginia, 
the names of Jones, of Mintz, and of others, are still 
familiar. All these gentlemen were received by the 
people here, with the warmest affection and confidence, 
and having complied with the conditions of the Act of 
Toleration, preached and baptized, not only without 
molestation from the colonial authorities, but with the 
most gratifying success. Their labors resulted in the 
organization, during the first year of their residence, 
1715, of a church at Burleigh, in Isle of Wight 
County, which has since taken the name — less classical 
indeed, but also less exposed to popular prejudice — 
of Mill Swamp. Another church was soon afterwards 
constituted at Brandon, in Surry County, believed to be 
that now known as Otter Dams. From this time 
Baptist churches sprang up rapidly in all the southern 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 59 

and lower counties in the colony. These were the first 
churches, embodying Baptist principles, that were 
planted in Virginia. 

Not long after these events, our attention is attracted 
by others of a like character, in the northern part of 
the colony. Previous to 1743, numerous Baptists 
were found residing in Loudon, Berkeley, and con- 
tiguous counties. A large and flourishing settlement 
had been made by the Welsh, in Pennsylvania, which 
already contained several Baptist churches. At the 
solicitation of these isolated Christians in Virginia, 
they were visited by Messrs. Loveall, Heaton, Garrard, 
and others, ministers from Pennsylvania, who preached 
and instructed the people faithfully and successfully. 
Here also, as in the South, churches immediately 
sprang up. The first was Opecon, the next Mill 
Creek, then Ketocton, and then numerous others. 
From these two centres, churches soon extended them- 
selves throughout the whole Virginia colony. 

From a very early period Baptist churches in the 
old world had been, for special purposes, accustomed 
to form themselves into Associations. None of these 
Associations were ever clothed with any power what- 
ever to govern the churches of which they were com- 
posed. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Head of all the 
churches, has delegated to each church full powers for 
its own government, but nothing more. Delegated 
power cannot be redelegated by those upon whom it is 
conferred, without the consent of the original authority. 
No such consent, for any purpose whatever, is found in 
the word of God. Churches cannot, therefore, divest 



60 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

themselves of the right of self-government. It is in- 
alienable. They cannot bestow it upon associations, 
nor upon any other body of churches, upon clergymen, 
or any synod, convention, or conference outside of 
themselves. For these reasons, and also because Asso- 
ciations are bodies unknown to the Scriptures, they 
never can in any manner govern the churches or con- 
trol their government. They were instituted by the 
Fathers as bodies in which the messengers of the 
churches might annually meet, make known to each 
other their progress, condition, and wants ; give to 
each other such advice and assistance as should be ne- 
cessary or practicable ; and agree upon judicious mea- 
sures to extend the preaching of the gospel into desti- 
tute places, and assist feeble churches, wherever such 
places and churches were found. Such were the As- 
sociation of which we have spoken, at Abergavenny, 
in Wales, in the time of Cromwell, and the Association 
in London, in the time of William III, that sent mis- 
sionaries to the Virginia colony. Such an Association 
had already been formed in Pennsylvania, then and 
now known as the Philadelphia Association. With 
this body, all the churches in Virginia united, and they 
derived from this membership, while it continued, 
many and very great advantages, since they were con- 
stantly favored with its advice and assistance, and 
visited by its ministers, and especially by James 
Miller, David Thomas, and John Gano, who labored 
among them with extraordinary success. 

The impunity with which the Baptists now preached 
and organized churches, arose from several co-opera- 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GIN1A. 61 

ting causes. None of the laws against dissenters, to 
which in former chapters we have referred at large, 
had been repealed, but they had been essentially modi- 
fied in their practical operation, by the " Statute of 
Toleration," and the opinion began very generally to 
prevail, that if citizens paid their tithes and other dues 
for the support of the Established Church ; were other- 
wise good and loyal subjects of the king of England ; 
did not by their religious services injure or disturb 
their neighbors; and had the prescribed government 
licenses, they might be suffered to worship God in 
their own way, without molestation. And further, the 
excessive bigotry which had been imported from the 
Old World, and which so long ran rampant in the 
colony, had by its very extravagance overthrown itself. 
A reaction had now fairly set in, the power of which 
could not be successfully resisted. Therefore, if Bap- 
tists kept themselves within ordinary bounds, not much 
inclination existed to inquire whether they were in all 
respects conformed to the intolerant statutes of the Leg- 
islature. And still further. At the time of which 
we now write, the ministry and most of the member- 
ship of the State Church had fallen into a state of al- 
most utter demoralization. They revelled in wealth 
and luxury ; they were careful only of their revenues 
and their pleasures ; and secure in their own power 
and position, they cared little for the spiritual condition 
or wants of the masses of the people. They were the 
lords of the land, beyond the reach of ordinary con- 
tingencies ; their contempt for the Baptists did not per- 
mit them to inquire much into their proceedings ; and 



62 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

therefore they gave them very little disturbance. These 
causes taken together exerted an extraordinary power. 
They were an effectual shield against the uplifted hand 
of persecution and oppression. The grand cause, how- 
ever, was the blessing of God. " The time to favor 
Zion, yea the set time, had come." The truth of the 
gospel had struck its roots deeply into the mental soil 
of the people. Church after church noiselessly shone 
forth, like the stars in an evening sky ; and sparkling 
as so many gems in the Virginia firmament, which 
they were destined to fill ere long with celestial radi- 
ance and beauty. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 63 

••• 

CHAPTEE Y. 

PEOGBESS OF BAPTIST PEINCIPLES IN VIEGINIA. 

Arrival and ministry of Steams and Marshall. Prevalence of revival. 
Ministers among the converts. Multiplication of churches Organi- 
zation of associations. The Kehuki. The Charleston. The Sandy 
Creek. The Ketocton. The General Association of Virginia. 

The arrival of Shubael Stearns inaugurated a new 
era in the history of " The Early Baptists of Virginia." 
That gentleman was born and educated in the city of 
Boston; was a a Minister of the Established Order" 
of Massachusetts ; had been compelled from principle 
to become a Baptist ; had been baptized and ordained 
in his native city; and, persecuted and harassed at 
home, had wandered to the South in hopes of greater 
usefulness, bringing with him his little helpless family. 
He had no place especially in view. He reached at 
length the Virginia colony, where he determined to 
rest at least for a season. Accordingly he took up his 
residence at Cacapon, in Hampshire County, where 
with great earnestness and many anxieties, he com- 
menced modestly to preach the gospel to the people. 
Soon after the settlement of Mr. Stearns, he was joined 
by his brother-in-law, Daniel Marshall, and his family. 
Mr. Marshall was a Presbyterian minister, born and 
educated in Windsor, Connecticut. He had, following 
the example of Elliott, devoted himself to the work of 
a missionary among the Indians. In that capacity, he 
had labored for several years with a tribe on the Sus- 



64 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

quehanna river, in Pennsylvania. War, however, 
broke out between that tribe and the colony of Mary- 
land, and instant confusion and destruction were all 
around him. Despairing of any further benefit to the 
Indians, he retired in deep sorrow from the scene of 
his sacrifices and toils. Naturally he bent his steps 
towards the contiguous residence of his relatives in 
Virginia, of which fortunately he had received some 
information. Meantime, studying carefully the word 
of God, and isolated from those influences that might 
have turned aside his conclusions, Mr. Marshall had 
also become a convert to the Baptist faith. Without 
unnecessary delay, he was baptized, ordained as a Bap- 
tist minister, and with all his great abilities and extra- 
ordinary zeal, entered with his brother-in-law upon the 
work of preaching the gospel to the Virginians. 

In all these events the directing hand of God soon 
became unmistakably apparent. The activity and 
laborious exertions upon which these two men now 
entered, were in modern times wholly unprecedented. 
They did not confine their labors to the vicinity of 
their residences, but visited other places, and were soon 
traveling and preaching throughout the whole length 
and breadth of the colony. Everywhere they found 
on the part of the people a warm reception. The 
fields were " white unto the harvest." God was in his 
own truth. One universal impulse appeared to per- 
vade the minds of all classes. Hungering for the 
bread of life, they came together in vast multitudes. 
Surprising success everywhere attended their ministry. 
Very large numbers were converted and baptized. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 65 

Churches sprang up by scores, all of which prospered, 
and multiplied, and rejoiced. The waves from the 
south of the colony, met those from the north. The 
whole land resounded with songs of gratitude and 
thanksgiving. 

Among the converts, were men of all ranks and 
positions in society. The high and the low, the rich 
and the poor, the free and the bond, all met in their 
churches upon the gospel level, where every one gladly 
took such part as he was able in the services. Soon 
not a few manifested superior qualifications for the 
ministry, and aifectionately encouraged by their breth- 
ren, entered enthusiastically upon the work. The 
ranks of the messengers of salvation were daily swell- 
ing. Higher and still higher the tide continued to 
rise. The mingled perseverance and energy with 
which they all, ministers and people, continued in the 
work, were amazing, and the rapidity with which the 
gospel was transmitted from neighborhood to neighbor- 
hood may be not unfitly described in the language 
with which iEschylus depicts the progress of the 
beacon fires that announced the fall of Troy : — 

" From watch to watch it leaped, that light, 
As a rider rode the flame." 

The people seem to have lost sight almost entirely of 
the parish churches, and ministers of the established 
religion, thinly scattered through the country. Their 
services were attended by a few families only, of 
high aristocratic pretensions, whose pride of position 
demanded "a religion fit for gentlemen." Few or 

6* 



66 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

no Presbyterians or Congregationalists were then in 
Virginia; the Methodists had not commenced their 
career in this country ; and the field was left to the 
almost exclusive occupancy of the Baptists. Under 
their vigorous cultivation, it bloomed like the garden 
of God. " The wilderness and the solitary place were 
glad for them, and the desert rejoiced and blossomed 
as the rose. It blossomed abundantly, and rejoiced 
even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon 
was given unto them ; the excellency of Carmel and 
Sharon. They saw the glory of the Lord ; and the 
excellency of our God." 

The Baptists of both the Carolinas had preceded in 
their movements those of Virginia. The governments 
of these colonies were much less bigoted and intoler- 
ant, and their people were, therefore, more free. In 
them both, therefore, were early found numerous 
and flourishing churches. Those in the eastern part 
of North Carolina, finding attendance upon the ses- 
sions of the Philadelphia Association, on account of the 
great distance, extremely inconvenient, indeed almost 
impracticable, met in Convention some time previous 
to 1750, and organized upon the parent model the 
Kehuki Association, which embraced all those 
churches in Virginia, south of the James Biver, from 
the Appomattox to the sea. The previous affinity of 
the Baptists in these two sections of country, has been 
explained in a former chapter.* Influenced by the 
same considerations the churches in South Carolina, 
including some in southern North Carolina, assembled 

* Vide, ch. 2. 






EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 67 

in 1751, and organized the Charleston Association, a 
body since distinguished for its extraordinary learning, 
energy, and usefulness. The fourth Association in the 
order of time formed among the Baptists of North 
America, was the Sandy Creek, organized in 1758, and 
composed of the churches in the upper portion of 
North Carolina, with those in the contiguous portion 
of Virginia, south of James River, and west of the 
Appomattox. The whole of the churches in Virginia 
between the James River and the Potomac — and they 
had now become very numerous — still retained their 
connection with the Philadelphia Association. Feeling 
the same inconveniences with the other churches fur- 
ther south, and moved by their example, they met in 
Convention, and organized the Ketocton Association. 
All these associations were formed with the advice and 
approval of the parent body. They covered an area 
of three colonies. Between them all, mother and 
daughter, scattered from the Hudson to the Savannah 
River, the most perfect affection and harmony of inter- 
course prevailed. These organizations did much for 
the time to consolidate the denomination, and to accel- 
erate its progress. 

The State Church and ministry of Virginia, vexed 
with the extraordinary progress of the Baptists, and 
mortified at finding themselves forsaken by their con- 
gregations, thousands of whom had professed religion, 
and united with their churches, awoke as from a 
dream. They had entrenched themselves carefully, 
and imagined that no danger could approach them. 
Suddenly they found themselves undermined, and 



68 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

almost wholly subverted. Their former contempt now 
changed to indignation, and they assumed an attitude 
of hostility. Unmistakable indications appeared that 
they would soon commence in earnest the work of per- 
secution, and if possible overwhelm the Baptist 
churches and their cause. Already the established 
ministry were preaching earnestly and persistently a 
crusade against them, and calling loudly upon the 
colonial authorities to execute rigorously the laws 
against dissenters. Against the injuries likely to re- 
sult from this cause, the Baptists believed it necessary 
that they should adopt some measures, which in the 
judgment of the wise and prudent might be thought 
the most effectual. 

The whole country, they saw evidently, was rapidly 
approaching a momentous political crisis, the probable 
results of which filled them with mingled apprehension 
and hope. An armed collision with the Mother 
Country seemed almost inevitable. Should that event 
occur, and the rebel colonies be subdued and brought 
back under the English yoke, the prospects of the 
Baptists in this country would be dark indeed. All 
their glorious prosperity would be overthrown, their 
churches crushed, and the whole cause thrown back 
into the position which it occupied a hundred years 
before. The thought that such a calamity might over- 
take them was horrible. On the other hand, indistinct 
prospects appeared to their minds, that should a revo- 
lution occur, and should the colonies achieve their 
freedom and secure the organization of a new govern- 
ment, they might in the providence of God be able, 



EABL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 69 

not only to free themselves from the tyranny and op- 
pression of the State Church, but also to engraft " Re- 
ligious Liberty/' in the legitimate Baptist sense, in 
the laws of Virginia at least, and perhaps in the laws 
of the whole country. As citizens, and as men, they 
had the same interests at stake with all others. But 
beyond these, as Christians, they looked to infinitely 
higher considerations. In their estimation, nearly all 
that is precious in the gospel of Christ, in its bearing 
upon the extension of truth in this world, and the pre- 
paration of the soul for salvation in the world to come, 
was now to be gained effectually, or lost for perhaps 
yet many a slow and weary century. To the Baptists, 
all these considerations seemed plainly involved in the 
approaching struggle. 

By what means could the ministry and churches in 
Virginia best concentrate all their energies, and bring 
them to bear upon these momentous interests, so as to 
control and direct them as effectually as possible? 
These questions were submitted to the churches, and 
discussed, publicly and privately, with great anxiety 
and earnestness. At their sessions in 1770, it was 
unanimously determined to meet in Convention and 
organize a new Association in Virginia, to the super- 
vision and direction of which all these interests, and 
nothing else, should be especially committed. This 
proposed combination, as will be seen, was unique and 
unprecedented. Exactly such another perhaps never 
existed before, and never has existed since. It was, 
however, timely, judicious, prompt, energetic; and, not- 
withstanding some dangerous aberrations, achieved re- 



70 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 

suits which ought to embalm its memory in the grate- 
ful heart, not only of every Christian, but also of every 
freeman in America. 

The Convention assembled according to appoint- 
ment, on the second Saturday in May, 1771, at Craig's, 
in Orange County. Large numbers were in attendance. 
A constitution was adopted, which pledged it never to 
attempt to exercise any authority over the churches, 
legislative, judicial, or executive, but to give itself ex- 
clusively to the interest confided by them to its care. 
It was then solemnly constituted and organized by 
prayer, under the name of " The General Association 
of Virginia." * The necessary Officers, Board, and 
Commissions were appointed, and received special in- 
structions, and then "The General Association" ad- 
journed to its next annual meeting. Thus originated that 
remarkable body, whose talents, energy, and fidelity 
have never been surpassed, and whose proceedings will 
occupy a large space in some of our succeeding chap- 
ters. 
* Semple's History of the Virginia Baptists, p. 4, et seq. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 71 



CHAPTER VI. 

CAUSES OF BAPTIST SUCCESS IN VIKGINIA. 

Character of the people. Demoralization of the State Church. Perse- 
cutions of the Baptists. Their manner of preaching. 

We now return, and will review as carefully as prac- 
ticable the causes which led to the extraordinary suc- 
cess with which " The Early Baptists of Virginia " 
were favored. The grand cause was undoubtedly the 
blessing of God upon his own truth. This truth they 
loved, embraced, adorned, and taught; and under such 
circumstances he will sooner or later make it trium- 
phant. There were, however, secondary causes, provi- 
dential circumstances and events, appropriate instru- 
mentalities, all of which combined to strengthen and 
facilitate their cause. One of these is found in the pe- 
culiar character of the people of Virginia. 

The citizens of this colony were isolated almost com- 
pletely from the great world in which they lived. 
Widely scattered in their deep forests, among their 
beautiful hills, and upon their broad and fertile plains, 
their minds naturally assumed a bold and vigorous 
character. Savage enemies prowled around them on 
every side. To preserve their families and friends 
from their murderous incursions, every man was com- 
pelled to plan and execute his own method of defence. 
Their domestic and pecuniary affairs, they were obliged 
to conduct with very little counsel from others. In a 



72 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

word, they were obliged on all subjects to think for 
themselves. They acquired, in consequence, habits of 
self-reliance, which extended themselves into every de- 
partment of life, to temporal things and to spiritual 
things, to the things of this world and of the world to 
come. This disposition once formed can never after- 
wards be repressed. A free and independent mind 
will think and act freely. It may be harassed and 
coerced, but it cannot be subdued. The yeomanry of 
Virginia were, therefore, not the men to be overawed by 
rulers or carried away by those prejudices or perverted 
principles that flow out from cities and rich and popu- 
lous neighborhoods. With the Bible in their hands, 
and little else in the form of literature, and accustomed 
to think and act independently, they heard impartially 
the preaching of the Baptists, and were prepared to 
weigh diligently and candidly their teachings. They 
saw that these teachings embraced truly the gospel of 
our Lord Jesus Christ. They gave them, therefore, 
their full and hearty assent. 

Another cause of the great success of "The Early 
Baptists of Virginia " is to be sought in the character 
of the then established religion of the colony. 

The trammels of an established religion, even when 
in its doctrines and forms it is comparatively unobjec- 
tionable, are not usually relished by the masses of the 
people, and especially by those who read for themselves 
the word of God and are accustomed to mental free- 
dom. To them, such a religion seems designed rather 
for courtly form and ceremony, or to subserve political 
purposes, than to promote the salvation and sanctifica- 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. . 73 

tion of the soul. Especially are they not likely to be 
hearty in the payment of the heavy taxes assessed by 
the government for its support. But when that reli- 
gion has, on whatever account, ceased to command 
their respect, and other doctrines, forms, and teachers 
seem to them more consonant with the word of God, 
then they look upon it with feelings of repulsion, and 
obedience is secured only by a power which compels it. 
Precisely such a state of things as this now existed in 
Virginia. The people had ceased to feel any special 
reverence for the Church, and of its bonds and its bur- 
dens they had become heartily tired. Nor was this all. 
With her arrogant pretensions, her persecuting spirit, 
and her general demoralization, they had become tho- 
roughly disgusted. They were, therefore, willing to 
hear the Baptists, and not disinclined to embrace and 
practice their principles. 

The moral condition of "The Protestant Episcopal 
Church in Virginia," — then established by law, — at 
the time of which we write, ought to be more fully 
presented. Dr. Semple, referring to that period, re- 
marks: — "The loose and immoral deportment of her 
clergy was such, that the people were left almost en- 
tirely destitute of even the shadow of religion. They 
had, indeed, some of the forms of worship, but the es- 
sential principles of Christianity were not only not un- 
derstood among them, but by many were never heard 
of."* Dr. Hawks himself is not less explicit than Dr. 
Semple. Quoting from Hammond, he says: — "They 
could babble in a pulpit, roar in a tavern, exact from 

* Hist, of Va. Bapt, pp. 25, 26. 

7 



74 , EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

their parishioners, and rather by their dissoluteness 
destroy than feed the flock."* In another place, Dr. 
Hawks says, Many of the clergy "were unfit for their 
duties." He adds : " The precariousness of the tenure 
by which they held their livings, contributed also not a 
little to beget in them a spirit of indifference to the 
discharge of their duties; and to complete the list of 
unpropitious circumstances, the irregularities and crimes 
of an unworthy clergyman could not be visited effectu- 
ally with the severities of ecclesiastical censure."f So 
scandalous did these evils at length become, that a 
remedy was attempted by the Legislature of the Com- 
monwealth. An extract from the law of 1776 will suf- 
ficiently explain the facts involved. It is as follows: 
"Be it further enacted by this Grand Assembly, and 
by the authority thereof, that such ministers as shall 
become notoriously scandalous by drunkenness, swear- 
ing, fornication, or other heinous and crying sins, and 
shall thereof be lawfully convicted, shall, for every such 
their heinous crime and wickedness," — and the act pro- 
ceeds to prescribe some petty and inconsiderable penal- 
ties.;]; 

This is a terribly revolting picture of clerical morals 
and manners. It is not to be presumed that all were 
of this character. Doubtless there were good men 
among them. What proportion of them were drunken 
debauchees may be readily imagined. They remained 
unrebuked, since the Church possessed no power — if it 

* Hist. Prot. Ep. Ch. in Va., p. 65. 
f Hist. Prot. Ep. Ch. in Va., p. 89. 
% Hening's Stat, at Large, Vol. II., p. 384. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 75 

had the inclination — to administer censure. The Le- 
gislature, therefore, undertook, by statute, to do the 
work of discipline. So far as appears, all these enact- 
ments remained nugatory. " Their heinous crimes and 
wickedness" went on unchecked. Is it surprising that 
for such a ministry and church the people should feel 
no reverence, and warmly oppose the taxes they were 
called upon to pay for their support? 

Another source of dissatisfaction with the church 
and ministry of the Establishment arose. The re- 
bellion broke out against the British government. 
Large numbers of the clergy at once assumed a position 
on the side of England, and against the liberty of the 
colony. They brought the subject into their pulpits ; 
they denounced the people as insurrectionists and 
traitors ; and commanded them to abandon their re- 
bellion, and submit, without further resistance, to their 
legitimate rulers. So offensive were the sermons of 
some of them, that the citizens felt themselves insuf- 
ferably outraged. On one occasion at least, a clergy- 
man, after a Sunday's vaporing in the pulpit, was 
seized by his congregation, carried into a neighboring 
forest, fastened to a tree, and there received thirty-nine 
lashes vigorously administered. Another to avoid a 
like fate, carried his pistols into the pulpit, and laying 
them by the side of his prayer-book, in the presence of 
the assembly, told his congregation that he should 
proceed with the service ; that England had a right to 
govern them ; that he should read all the prayers for 
the king, the Eoyal family, and the government ; that 
in his sermon he should say what he pleased ; and that 



76 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

he would shoot any man and every man who at- 
tempted to restrain him." Referring to these two ex- 
amples, Dr. Hawks, an Episcopalian writer of our 
own day, does not disapprove the conduct of the 
ministers. The punishment inflicted in the former 
case, he denounces as insult and persecution, and of the 
latter he says: "Such firmness was not without its 
effect; the resolute minister was never interrupted; 
his house became the refuge of many of his persecuted 
brethren [tories] ; and one of the surest places of 
safety/'* Not many of the clergy, however, were so 
intrepid. The fearful and faint-hearted, therefore, fled 
with all practicable haste. Few of them had any 
sympathy with the spirit or movements of the Ameri- 
can people. 

Earnestly apologizing for these clerical renegades 
and tories, Dr. Hawks further says : " The clergy 
were generally friends of the Mother Country." 
" Admit the fact that the view which they entertained 
was erroneous, still it might have been, and was in 
many cases, a very honest error." " The question as 
to the proper course to be pursued, was one on which 
honest and intelligent men might differ." " Before, 
therefore, we condemn all who, in the perilous struggle, 
took part with the Mother Country, we should place 
ourselves in imagination in their situation, and it may 
serve to temper the harshness of our judgment." "But 
the error was not confined to the clergy. A portion of 
the laity adopted their opinions ; it was however very 
small, for the mass of the population in Virginia was 

♦Hist. Prot. Epis. Cn. in Va. 3 pp. 145, 146, 147. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 77 

opposed to England; and this rendered the situation 
of the clergy only the more disagreeable."* It is 
useless to discuss the question with Dr. Hawks, 
whether the Episcopal clergy of that day, whom he 
himself characterizes as being so depraved in morals ; 
and who were by a law of the " Grand Assembly/' 
accused as drunkards, swearers, and fornicators, had 
not in their own opinion very good reasons for being 
the enemies of Virginia liberty; whether in their 
tOryism they were not very honest, and very consci- 
entious ; whether they were not the only enemies in 
the Church to American freedom; and whether the 
patriotism of the masses did not render their position 
very disagreeable. It is enough to know that they 
adhered to the foe, and were the enemies of the people. 
The citizens were fighting for their country ; on every 
battle-field they were pouring out their blood like 
water ; the cry of Patrick Henry was echoed by every 
patriot, " Give me liberty, or give me death ;" and all 
were in the midst of the deep and desperate struggle 
for existence. What then must have been the feelings 
with which they beheld their pastors in league with 
their enemies and destroyers. Their indignation must 
have been boundless. They cast them off with inex- 
pressible scorn. 

To whom, now, were they most likely to look for 
spiritual instruction, and guidance? Not with un- 
wavering confidence to the Presbyterian ministry and 
church, since they, as such, manifested, as we shall 
hereafter see, especial prudence, and carefully main- 

* Hist. Prot. Ep. Ch. &c, pp. 135, 136. 

7* 



78 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

tained only such grounds as would afford them an op- 
portunity of easy retreat, in case of danger, to their 
original political position; or, if the colonies should 
succeed, to join in their triumphs; and besides, they 
were very few in numbers. Not to the Methodists, 
since they at that time claimed to be part and parcel 
of the Established Church, but purified from its moral 
pollutions. They did not, as we shall see, conceal the 
fact, that they were unmitigated tories. Public con- 
fidence turned affectionately and confidingly to the 
Baptists. As patriots, they were well known to be 
above reproach. Not a Baptist could be found in 
Virginia, minister or layman, who did not espouse, 
and at every sacrifice and to the last extremity defend, 
the cause of liberty. They were also, at that period, 
well known as eminently prayerful and devoted 
Christians. The people heard their fervid discourse 
and witnessed their earnest piety with delight. When 
the love of Christ was shed abroad in their hearts, 
then they gladly united by thousands with the Baptist 
churches. 

The measures adopted by the colonial rulers to sup- 
press Baptist principles, became a cause of their extra- 
ordinary success in Virginia. 

In every age of the Church the persecutions it has 
waged have been its deep dishonor. No State church 
has ever been known that has abstained from persecu- 
tion. In this shame, that of Virginia had its full 
share. The progress of the Baptists was to the clergy 
and governing authorities, exceedingly offensive. The 
magistrates commenced to annoy the people, and espe- 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 79 

cially the ministers, in every practicable way. They 
sought, as we have seen, to set aside the " Law of Tol- 
eration ; n old and obsolete laws were hunted up and 
revived ; and every effort was made for their enforce- 
ment. Assessments were made with renewed dili- 
gence ; fines were imposed and collected in all possible 
cases; assemblages were assailed and violently dis- 
persed; and pastors and ministers and private mem- 
bers of the churches were arrested, thrown into prison, 
dragged before the courts, insulted, brow-beaten, and 
ignominiously punished. All this and more is con- 
fessed by their own best writers. In his elaborate 
History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Vir- 
ginia, Dr. Hawks, himself says : — " No Dissenters in 
Virginia experienced for the time, harsher treatment 
than did the Baptists. They were beaten and impris- 
oned, and cruelty taxed its ingenuity to devise new 
modes of punishment and annoyance. The usual con- 
sequences followed; persecution made friends for its 
victims ; and the men who were not permitted to speak 
in public found willing auditors in the sympathizing 
crowds who gathered around the prisons to hear them 
preach from the grated windows. It is not," he adds, 
"improbable that this very opposition imparted 
strength in another mode, inasmuch as it at length 
furnished the Baptists with common ground on which 
to make resistance." * 

Dr. Hawks was not mistaken as to the results of 
this shameful persecution of the Baptists. The sym- 
pathies of the people were with them ; crowds flocked 

* History, &c, p. 121. 



80 EARL Y BAPTIS TS OF VIR GINIA. 

daily about their prisons ; and the sermons they ad- 
dressed to them from the grated windows, had an 
effect ten times greater than if they had been preached 
from the pulpit. The truth of this remark was illus- 
trated by various examples; it was seen during the 
imprisonment of Waller, Craig, and others in Freder- 
icksburg ; of Waller, Greenwood, and their associates 
at Middlesex Court House; of Craig, Burruss, and 
others at Caroline Court House ; and in the cases of 
those ministers who were incarcerated in the jails of 
Orange, Culpepper, Fauquier, Loudon, Chesterfield, 
and of various other counties. A venerable gentle- 
man,* recently gone to his rest, some years ago said to 
his friend : — " I often heard, in my youth, the Baptist 
ministers preach from the windows of the Jail at Ches- 
terfield Court House. The effects were sometimes 
most extraordinary. On one occasion Webber was 
preaching ; the heavy iron gratings partially concealed 
him ; his appeals were most touching. A man that I 
did not know, came up and stood by my side. In a 
few minutes this man began to tremble violently ; pre- 
sently he fell upon his knees, and then upon his face ; 
and there he lay during the service, praying audibly 
and agonizingly to God for mercy and salvation 
through Jesus Christ." This, he added, "was no unu-. 
sual occurrence. Scores and fifties were often at the 
same time similarly exercised." Eleazer Clay, Sheriff 
of the county, the uncle and guardian of the distin- 
guished statesman, Henry Clay, with reference to those 
who had professed religion at Chesterfield Jail, writes 
* Edward Bass, Esq. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 81 

thus to his friend, Rev. John Williams, of Amelia 
County : — 

"We wish you to come down and baptize those 
who are now waiting for an opportunity. The Lord 
is now carrying on a glorious work in our county. 
The preaching at the prison is not attended in vain, 
for we hope that several are converted, while others 
are under great distress, and are made to cry out, 
c What shall we do to be saved.' " * 

The proceedings in all the other counties where Bap- 
tist ministers were imprisoned were substantially the 
same with those in Chesterfield. From these, as so 
many centres, the excitement extended itself throughout 
the whole country, and while it produced intense indig- 
nation against the clergy and magistrates, added im- 
mensely to the popularity and success of the Baptists 
of Virginia. 

The consonance between the doctrines held by Bap- 
tists in every age and country on political subjects, and 
the spirit of liberty which had now taken full possession 
of the Virginia heart, was another cause of the extraor- 
dinary success of the Baptists in that commonwealth. 

What these doctrines are, has been summarily stated. 
Their full concession by the governing powers was de- 
manded. Mere toleration, in its ordinary sense, did 
not satisfy them. Indeed they held it to be wholly 
inadmissible, since it concedes the right of the govern- 
ment, which they deny, to interfere in the religion of 
its citizens. These principles were constantly pro- 

* Taylor's Lives of Virginia Baptist Ministers, pp. 203, 204, First 
Edit. 



82 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

claimed by " The Early Baptists of Virginia " in pub- 
lic and in private, from the prisons and from the pul- 
pits of the colony, and declared by such men as Waller, 
Harriss, Craig, Stearns, Greenwood, Thomas, Webber, 
Marshall, Burruss, and their compeers — men who in 
social position, intelligence, wealth, and general respect- 
ability, were in no way below, and in piety infinitely 
above, their assailants and persecutors. By Episcopa- 
lians, and Methodists, and, to some extent, by Presby- 
terians, they were denounced as pestilential heresies, 
disorganizing doctrines, whose prevalence was always 
to be deplored, and whose influence was, by all practi- 
cable methods, and at the earliest moment, to be sup- 
pressed. To their importance and intrinsic value, the 
progress of events had at last opened the eyes of the 
people. They now saw plainly that no State that does 
not fully embrace them ever can be really free. The time 
of their triumph had come. The masses received them 
as propounded by the ministers of religion, and ranged 
themselves by thousands on the side of the Baptists. 

To the peculiar character of the preaching of those 
times, however, more than to any other one cause, is 
to be ascribed the extraordinary success of the early 
Baptists of Virginia. 

Practically the people had up to this time been almost 
without a preached gospel. The Baptist ministry arose, 
rapidly multiplied, and soon filled the country. Never 
was a body of ministers more completely adapted to the 
people for whom they labored, and the times in which 
they lived. They had, as we shall hereafter see, con- 
troversies among themselves, but these did not seriously 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 83 

retard their work, much as has been said to the contrary 
by their assailants, and even by their friends. They 
were on subjects on which good and learned men have 
in no age found themselves able to harmonize entirely. 
Their differences were, however, always discussed with 
prayerfulness, brotherly love, and Christian courtesy, 
and, therefore, soon happily terminated. Subsequent 
years exhibited less of these characteristics. Still it is 
true that no denomination that has existed through so 
many ages, and of numbers so great, has preserved a 
more perfect unanimity, or fallen into fewer great and 
incurable divisions than the Baptist. These facts are 
well known to every man who is familiar with Eccle- 
siastical History. 

By far the greater portion of the Baptist ministers of 
that period, came from the masses of the people to whom 
they preached, and with whose character, circumstances, 
peculiarities, and wants they were, therefore, intimately 
familiar. They sympathized with them fully, and in 
all respects. They consequently knew how to form and 
direct their discourses, so as to produce the best results. 
They were all remarkable for cheerful gravity, earnest 
and fervent piety, and a deportment strikingly exem- 
plary. No others were tolerated by the churches, who 
exercised in that day over ministers as well as private 
members the strictest discipline. No worldly emolu- 
ment, honor, ease, or power tempted any of them to enter 
the pulpit. On the contrary, they were deterred from 
it by the prospect of almost certain poverty, a life of 
laborious toil, and constant persecutions and annoyances. 
Nothing could impel them, therefore, to this sacred 



84 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

work, but the love of Christ and an overwhelming de- 
sire for the happiness and salvation of men. They 
lived in the presence of God — prayer and intercourse 
with him occupied them incessantly ; their souls were 
imbued with the spirit of Christ ; they loved the souls 
of men; their conversation in society was eminently 
spiritual ; and they readily imparted to their associates 
and hearers the feelings by which they were themselves 
actuated. 

On their days of meeting, and at all their casual ap- 
pointments for preaching, their congregations always 
assembled early, and seating themselves as they arrived, 
they invariably occupied the time until the services 
commenced in singing the songs of Zion, which were 
often mingled with prayer, somewhat in the form of the 
prayer-meetings of the present day. These songs were 
numerous ; not always composed in the highest style 
of poetry, but invariably eminently devotional ; they 
generally had choruses attached; the tunes were for the 
most part easy and somewhat rapid ; they were readily 
committed to memory; and the whole congregation 
joined in them most heartily ; so that often when the 
minister arose to speak the whole assembly was all 
glowing with the warmest feelings of devotion, and 
eminently prepared to hear with benefit his heavenly 
message. So delighted were the people with these ex- 
ercises, that whenever they met at each other's houses 
they occupied themselves in a similar manner. 

The sermons of the ministers, however learned or 
unlearned, were nearly all constructed upon the same 
model. That model embraced invariably the grand 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 85 

leading truths of the gospel. With great clearness and 
force, they first presented the lost condition of man by 
nature, the innate depravity of the human heart, and 
the impossibility of deliverance from spiritual death by 
the law, by gospel ordinances, or by any other acts of 
mere human obedience. They next depicted vividly 
the way of salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 
with all its gracious characteristics, bearings, and rela- 
tions. Then followed an exposition of the manner in 
which the righteousness and merits of the Redeemer 
are personally applied, in the case of each believer, by 
the Holy Spirit of God, and of the nature and effects 
of "repentance towards God, and faith towards our 
Lord Jesus Christ." They now recounted some of the 
mental phenomena generally attendant upon true spiri- 
tual regeneration, with the temptations, trials, and 
encouragements characteristic of genuine Christian ex- 
perience. They closed with an earnest appeal to Chris- 
tians, suitably to adorn their holy profession, and to 
sinners, to repent, believe, and be saved. The style, man- 
ner, and elocution of their sermons varied, of course, 
as did the endowments of the preachers, but the grand 
truths they uttered were always the same. The minds 
of the people were kept constantly and intensely fixed 
upon these great principles. The results were most 
happy. Multitudes heard, believed, obeyed, and re- 
joiced. 

These mainly, under God, were the causes which gave 
the Early Baptists of Virginia their extraordinary 
success ; the independent character of the people ; the 
demoralized condition of the State Church and minis- 

8 



86 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA, 

try ; the measures they adopted to crush and destroy 
them ; the consonance between Baptist principles on 
political subjects and the spirit of liberty which had 
taken possession of the minds of the people ; and the 
forcible and direct manner in which the ministry 
always kept before their congregations the great and 
vital truths of the gospel. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 87 



CHAPTER VII. 

CONTROVERSIES OF THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIR- 
GINIA. 

Predestination and Arminianism. Classes of Baptists in England. 
The immigration to Virginia of both classes. Their discussions 
here. Division; action regarding it of Ketocton Association; of 
Sandy Creek; of the General Association; of Kehuki; of the General 
Committee. Reunion. 

The Early Baptists of Virginia were not agreed in 
their opinions on the doctrines of grace. Their differ- 
ences on these subjects they inherited from their fathers 
of the English churches. Those doctrines, subsequently 
known in Ecclesiastical History as Calvinism and Ar- 
minianism, attracted, until the fourth century, very lit- 
tle attention. The controversies between Augustine 
and Pelagius then brought them prominently forward. 
Until the Lutheran Reformation, however, they were 
confined for the most part to the schools, and produced 
therefore no special public agitation. Before the Re- 
formation, they did not disturb the harmony of Baptist 
churches. After that period, they were regarded by 
them as questions of much moment, and ultimately 
divided them into two parties. In England, one of 
these parties assumed the Arminian ground, and were 
afterwards known as " General Baptists." The other 
maintained the Calvinistic doctrine, and were denomi- 
nated " Particular Baptists." Together they have al- 
ways formed, as is well known, one of the most numer- 



88 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

ous bodies of English Dissenters, and have counted 
among their number some of the ablest men, poets, 
orators and writers, that Britain ever produced. To 
say nothing of their laymen, such as Harrison, Ludlow, 
Lilbourne, Penn, and others, their list of ministers is 
singularly brilliant. The names of Tombes, Bamp- 
field, Bunyan, Gosnold, Knollys, Denne, Cox, Jessey, 
Du Veil, Dell, Smyth, Helwisse, Barbour, Grantham, 
Eussell, Gale, Emlyn, Whiston, Foster, Toulmin, Gif- 
ford, Steed, Vaux, Collins, Lamb, Price, Keats, Har- 
ris, Sutton, Adams, Mann, Harrison, the Stennetts, Pig- 
gott, Stinton, Delaune, Sharp, Gill, and a multitude 
of others would give fame to any denomination of 
Christians in any age or country.* Had these great 
men "agreed to disagree" on the doctrine of Predesti- 
nation, and had their people mingled together freely in 
their devotional meetings as they did here, their differ- 
ences would soon have been forgotten ; and united they 
would have exerted an influence in favor of truth, of 
the extent and benefit of which they themselves proba- 
bly never dreamed. Unhappily they kept up their 
collisions; were thrown asunder; and afterwards ex- 
isted as two separate, and in some respects antagonistic, 
denominations. 

The Baptist immigrants to Virginia came from both 
these classes. Here they all joined the same churches, 
mingled together indiscriminately, and while the 
churches were few and weak, lived together in unbro- 
ken harmony. When, however, Baptist principles be- 
gan to extend, churches to multiply and flourish, and 
* Benedict's Hist. Bapt., edit. 1848, pp. 320 et seq. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 89 

dangers and persecutions were to some extent with- 
drawn, their hereditary differences were again exhumed 
and urged by their brethren in England, they again 
separated from each other. Guided by " elective affi- 
nity," the churches were no longer one, but two. Ge- 
neral Baptist churches and ministers, and Particular 
Baptist churches and ministers, assumed their positions, 
and without much discussion or agitation, not however 
under these, but under new names. Their doctrines 
were the same in Virginia as in Europe, but for some 
reasons not now readily ascertained, they were here 
known, not as General and Particular, but as Separate 
and Regular Baptists, the former Arminian in senti- 
timent, the latter Calvinistic. 

Divided, however, as they were, these two classes of 
Baptists still loved each other warmly and sincerely. 
Essays were soon made to reunite them. These essays 
were conducted mainly by the Associations, and with 
great mutual kindness and respect, but unhappily with- 
out immediate success, although earnestly supported by 
leading brethren on both sides. The first public move- 
ment in this direction was inaugurated by brethren in 
1767, but received no very definite form. Three years 
afterwards, in 1769, the Ketocton, a Regular, or Cal- 
vinistic Association in northern Virginia, addressed the 
Sandy Creek, a Separate, or Arminian, Association in 
southern Virginia, but mostly in North Carolina, on 
this subject. Their letter was as follows : 
" Beloved in our Lord Jesus Christ : 

"The bearers of this letter [they were Rev. 
Messrs. Garrett, Mager and Saunders] will acquaint 

8* 



90 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

you with the design of writing it. Their errand is 
peace, and their business is a reconciliation, if there is 
any difference subsisting. If we are all Christians, all 
Baptists, all New Lights,* why are we divided? Must 
the little appellatives, Regular and Separate, break the 
golden band of charity, and set the sons and daughters 
of God at variance ? ' Behold how good and how plea- 
sant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity !' But 
how bad and how bitter it is for them to live asunder 
and in discord! To indulge ourselves in prejudice is 
surely disorder, and to quarrel about nothing is irregu- 
larity with a witness. Oh, dear brethren, let us en- 
deavor for the future to avoid this calamity." 

The messengers were cordially received, the address 
was read, and the subject entertained and maturely 
considered. The proposed reunion received the con- 
currence of the body, but was deferred by an alleged 
necessity of settling with more deliberation some of its 
details. Of the original Sandy Creek Association, 
which then embraced in its district large portions of 
Virginia, North Carolina, and western South Carolina, 
this providentially was the last business session. It 
assembled the next year, but only to arrange for a 
separation into three kindred bodies. The churches in 
South Carolina agreed to meet for organization at Sa- 
luda; those in North Carolina, at Haw River, for a 
similar purpose ; and those in Virginia, at Thompson's, 
Louisa County, where they were organized as the Rapid 
Ann Association in 1771, but were soon after merged as 
a body into the General Association of the Baptists of 

* A recent name of reproach. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 91 

Virginia. Thus for a season the desired union failed ; 
but some progress had evidently been made towards 
the object proposed. 

We have seen, in a previous chapter, the organiza- 
tion of the General Association, with its peculiar cha- 
racter and object. In this body, both parties were 
members, and happily and harmoniously co-operated. 
At its second Annual Meeting, which was held in 1772, 
the subject of a re-union of the churches was brought 
up, and entertained, as entirely consonant with its de- 
signs. We have before seen that the Kehuki Associa- 
tion occupied, at this time, a part of South Carolina, 
the whole of lower North Carolina, and all that region 
of lower Virginia south of James Eiver.* To this body 
the General Association addressed itself, and sent as 
messengers to confer with it on the subject, Samuel 
Harris, Elijah Craig, John Waller, and David Thomp- 
son, four of its ablest and most influential ministers. 
They attended the session, but with no success. Dis- 
cussions on doctrinal subjects were provoked, and were 
conducted probably in a bad spirit. One of the impe- 
diments seems to have been that the General Associa- 
tion had published no Declaration of Faith. At its 
meeting in 1774, after the report of its messengers to 
the Kehuki, a " Question concerning a Confession of 
Faith" came up, and being maturely considered, that 
body decided that " A Confession of Faith is more proper 
for churches than for an Association."! However these 

* Semple's Hist., &c, pp. 45-47. Burkett and Bead's Hist. Kehuki 
Ass'n. 
f Semple's Hist., &c, p. 55. 



92 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

things might have been, the spirit of union now re- 
ceived a melancholy check, and for a short time divi- 
sion in that quarter, and not union, was industriously 
fomented. 

Agitations and discussions regarding the Doctrines 
of Grace became general, and the session of the Gen- 
eral Association itself for 1775 was rendered painfully 
memorable by their introduction into that body. 
Samuel Harris, Jeremiah Walker, and John Waller, 
defended the principles of the Separate Baptists, and 
William Murphy, John Williams, and Elijah Craig, 
sustained those of the Regular Baptists. Pamphlets 
had during the previous year been written and pub- 
lished by some of these gentlemen on both sides of the 
question at issue.* Great ability, candor, and Chris- 
tian courtesy characterized these debates, which were 
continued a greater part of the session. The Associa- 
tion was called upon to express its opinion as to which 
of the contending parties was right, but the exact form 
of the question debated is not now of record, and can- 
not therefore be more definitely stated. At the close 
of the day on Monday a vote was had, and it was 
found that, by a very small majority, the sentiments of 
the Association were in favor of the Regular, or Predes- 
tinarian opinion, and adverse to that of the Separate, 
or Arminian doctrine. The decision was announced, 
and the Association adjourned amidst feelings of the 
most painful character. The minority were silent. 
The majority, after consulting together, determined to 
bring up the subject again the next day upon the 

* These pamphlets I have not seen. No copies are accessible. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 93 

question, "Whether their opinions on these subjects 
should be made by the brethren on either side a bar to 
Christian fellowship and communion." 

The General Association met on Tuesday. The 
two parties assembled apart, but in contiguous places. 
They opened communications with each other, all of 
which were conducted by messages, either verbal or 
written. The proceedings were exciting in the highest 
degree. The Regulars proposed to the Separates 
terms of union, which asked their assent to two propo- 
sitions only ; that " salvation is of the special electing 
grace of God ; " and that " salvation is without merit 
on the part of the creature." To this message the 
Separates, after consultation, sent the following written 
response : — 

" Dear Brethren : A steady union with you makes 
us willing to be more explicit in our answer to your 
terms of reconciliation proposed. We do not deny the - 
former part of your proposition, respecting particular 
election of grace, still retaining our liberty wdth regard 
to construction. And as to the latter part, respecting 
merit in the creature, we are free to profess that there 
is none." 

To this truly gratifying message, the Regulars sent 
the following Answer : — 

" Dear Brethren : Inasmuch as your Christian fel- 
lowship seems nearly as dear to us as our lives, and 
seeing our difficulties concerning your principles with 
respect to merit in the creature, particular election, and 
final perseverance of saints are in a hopeful measure 



94 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

removing, we do willingly retain you in fellowship, 
not raising the least bar, but do heartily wish and 
pray that God in his kind providence in his own time 
may bring it to pass, when all Israel shall be of one 
mind, speaking the same things." 

The effects of these communications were most 
happy. Both parties were deeply moved. By an 
instant and simultaneous movement they came joyfully 
together. Delight was in everv heart. The Associa- 
tion restored to harmony, now resumed, finished its 
business, and adjourned. 

The decision of the Association was universally 
approved by the brethren, and ratified by all the 
churches.* The reunion was, for the time, as happy 
as the conflict had been distressing. It was, however, 
not yet considered to be upon a basis as broad and 
stable as was desired. When, therefore, some years 
•afterwards, the General Association, having as was 
believed accomplished its mission, was dissolved, and 
the General Committee, composed of chosen messengers 
from all the associations in the State, was instituted to 
take its place, much solicitude was felt on that subject. 
At the Annual meeting of that Committee for 1783, it 
came before the body, upon " A proposition to adopt a 
Confession of Faith." AVhy this measure was thought 
important, and why the General Committee — as its 
predecessor, the General Association, had done — did 
not decline it, we have now no data by which to deter- 
mine. Serious apprehensions were felt and freely 
expressed, that the union between the Regular and 
* Seruple's History of the Virginia Baptists, pp. 60, 61. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 95 

Separate bodies was not — should the proposed measure 
be carried out — sufficiently strong to survive the shock 
it would receive. The Committee decided upon a 
middle course. It adopted " The Philadelphia Con- 
fession of Faith," but with such modifications and res- 
ervations as rendered it entirely unobjectionable. It 
was careful to affirm that, with its consent, none 
should be considered as obliged to embrace its teach- 
ings in all respects, and that " It should not usurp a 
tyrannical power over the conscience of any." The fol- 
lowing are the recorded conditions : " We do not mean 
[in adopting this Confession of Faith] that every per- 
son is to be bound to the strict observance of every- 
thing therein contained ; nor do we mean to make it in 
any respect superior, or equal to, the Scriptures in mat- 
ters of faith and practice ; all that we propose, is to 
express the opinion that it is the best human composi- 
tion of the kind now extant ; yet it shall be liable to 
alterations whenever the General Committee in behalf 
of the Association shall think fit." * 

These proceedings evince several important facts. 
They show that all classes of Baptists in Virginia ear- 
nestly desired a solid and permanent union with each 
other; that all their controversies were conducted in 
such a style and spirit as not seriously to jeopard this 
result; that the mutual personal bearing of the liti- 
gants was always singularly respectful and courteous ; 
that the high honor and Christian character of each 
other were invariably fully conceded ; that no one ques- 
tioned the motives, purposes, or sincerity of another ; 

* Semple's History, &c, pp. 59, 60. 



96 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

that in their opinion Confessions of Faith were not 
proper for Associations ; that when, after having been 
pressed to do so, the General Committee adopted the 
Philadelphia Confession of Faith, it was simply as an 
exposition, in general terms, of the leading principles 
which Baptists believe to be taught in the word of 
God, and not as a standard to govern them in their 
faith and practice; that all trials and other proceed- 
ings in the churches were directed by the Scriptures, 
and not by any human confession of faith ; and that all 
these considerations met the universal favor of the 
churches and the people. 

Notwithstanding all these proceedings, impediments 
to the permanent reunion of the two classes of Baptists 
in Virginia, of an embarrassing character, were con- 
tinually springing up. The most formidable of these 
was found in the appeals supposed to have been ad- 
dressed to the leading members of each class by their 
English brethren, to maintain here the separate organi- 
zations that had characterized their fathers in the 
Mother Country. Desirous to put these agitations for- 
ever to rest, the General Committee, at its session in 
1786, adopted unanimously the following proceeding: 

" It is recommended to the different Associations to 
appoint delegates to attend the next General Commit- 
tee, for the purpose of forming a [more perfect] union" 
between the Separate and Regular Baptists of Vir- 
ginia.* 

The next annual meeting of the Committee was held 
at Dover, in Goochland County, and commenced Au- 
* Semple's Hist. Ya. Bap., p. 73. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 97 

gust 10th, 1787. In this meeting every Baptist Asso- 
ciation in the State, without a single exception, was 
fully represented. The record of proceedings, as pub- 
lished by Semple, is as follows : * 

"Agreeably to appointment the subject of the union 
of Regular [Particular] and Separate [General] Bap- 
tists was taken up/ 7 and referred to an able committee, 
to consider and report the conclusions at as early a 
period as practicable. In due time the committee re- 
ported, and after full consideration, "a happy and ef- 
fectual reconciliation was accomplished." In the de- 
bates on the subject, the following considerations 
mainly occupied the meeting : — " The objections on the 
part of the Separates," says Dr. Semple, from whom 
this narrative is extracted, " related chiefly to matters of 
trivial importance, which had been for some time reme- 
died." " On the other hand, the Regulars complained 
that the Separates were not sufficiently explicit in their 
principles, having never published nor sanctioned a 
Confession of Faith." "To these things it was an- 
swered by the Separates, that a large majority of them 
believed as much in their Confession of Faith as they 
did themselves ; and that they did not approve the prac- 
tice of churches binding themselves too strictly by Con- 
fessions of Faith, since there was danger that they might 
usurp finally too high a place ; that if there were among 
them some who leaned too much towards the Arminian 
system, they were men of exemplary piety, and great 
usefulness in the Redeemer's kingdom ; and that they 
conceived it better to bear with some diversity of opin- 

* Hist., Ac, pp. 74, 75. 



98 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA, 

ion in doctrine, than to break with men whose Christian 
deportment rendered them amiable in the estimation of 
all true lovers of genuine godliness ; that some of them, 
indeed, had now become fathers in the gospel, who pre- 
vious to the bias their minds had received, had borne 
the brunt and heat of persecution, whose labor and suf- 
ferings had been blessed and were still blessed to the 
great advancement of his cause; and that to exclude 
such as these from their communion would be like 
tearing the limbs from the body. These and such like 
arguments were agitated in public and in private, so 
that all minds were much conciliated before the final 
and successful attempts for union." 

" The terms of the union," continues Dr. Semple, 
" were entered upon the minutes. They embraced the 
general recognition of the principles set forth in the 
Confession of Faith previously adopted, with the limi- 
tations and explanations before made by the General 
Association. After considerable debate as to the pro- 
priety of having a Confession of Faith at all, other 
than the Bible, the report of the committee was 
adopted, with the following addition. ' To prevent the 
Confession of Faith from usurping a tyrannical power 
over the conscience, we do not mean (by giving it our 
approval) that every person shall be bound to the 
strict observance of everything therein contained, but 
only that it holds forth the essential truths of the 
gospel, and (shows) that the doctrine of salvation by 
Christ, through free and unmerited grace alone, ought 
to be believed by every Christian, and maintained by 
every minister of the gospel. Upon these terms, we 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 99 

(such is the record) are united; and we desire that 
hereafter the names, Regular and Separate, shall be 
buried in oblivion ; and that henceforth we may be 
known by the name of The United Baptist Churches 
in Virginia.' " 

These proceedings were adopted by all that immense 
and talented assembly, composed of both parties, 
unanimously. Every heart was thrilled with joy ; and 
as it went forth, it was hailed and ratified by the 
churches with inexpressible delight. All former party 
feelings were thenceforward banished ; the names, 
Regular and Separate, were heard no more ; all were 
practically as well as in name, " The United Baptist 
Churches in Virginia." 



100 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

EPISCOPACY AMONG THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIR- 
GINIA. 

Ep>iscopacy adopted in Virginia. Its previous prevalence among 
English Baptists — Discussions on the subject, Institution of apostles. 
Its failure in practice. Its abandoment. 

"The early Baptists of Virginia," were strongly 
inclined to engraft upon their Church polity a peculiar 
form of Episcopacy. This bias arose in part from 
their former connection with the English General 
Baptists, and in part from the respect felt for that 
form of Ecclesiastical Government, by the great 
numbers of converts who had come to them from the 
Established Church, and who had been taught to be- 
lieve that Episcopacy was of divine appointment. 

Among the General Baptist churches of England, 
from which the churches in Virginia received large 
numbers of their members, Episcopacy prevailed, and 
at the time of the movement on that subject in the 
colony was received and acted upon as an institution of 
Christ, 

The form of Episcopacy which prevailed in the 
General Baptist churches in England, is described by 
Dr. Wall, a distinguished writer of the English 
Episcopal Church. In his history of Infant Baptism 
Dr. Wall says: 

"The General Baptists have some [ministers] whom 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 101 

they call Messengers, which is the English word for 
Apostles. And there are of these, two sorts. Some are 
such of their Presbyters as being found of the best 
abilities, judgment, &c., are appointed (besides the care 
of their own congregations) to go sometimes about a 
certain district, diocese, or province. And when any 
of these come to preach in any other man's congrega- 
tion, or to be present at any meeting of their churches, 
he is received and heard with greater respect than 
ordinary, and his authority more regarded than ordi- 
nary Presbyters. But for direct and proper jurisdic- 
tion over other Presbyters and people, he has none ; 
nor any power of ruling but in his own congregation. 
The other sort is of such as are nothing else but Mes- 
sengers, in the ordinary sense of the English word, 
viz., men appointed as messengers to carry the sense 
and opinions of some congregations to other congrega- 
tions at a distance." * 

Doubtless, however, Baptist writers are on such sub- 
jects more reliable than others. To them we turn for 
our authorities. Richard Taylor, on this subject, ob- 
serves : — 

" Ever attentive to the teachings of the word of 
God, it was not long before they (the General Baptists 
of England) supposed that they discovered in the pri- 
mitive churches an officer superior to an elder. They 
remarked that Barnabas, Luke, Timothy, Titus, and 
several others were fellow-laborers with the Apostles 
in the preaching of the gospel and the planting and 
regulating of churches ; and that in various passages 

* Hist. Inf. Bap. part 2, chap. 8, Lects. 6 and 20. 

9* 



102 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

they were called Apostles, or in English Messengers, of 
the churches. They thought it probable that the 
angels, or messengers, of the seven churches in Asia, 
to whom the author of the Revelation addressed his 
epistles, were also of the same order. They, therefore, 
introduced an officer into their system whom they 
styled a Messenger. He was generally chosen by an 
Association of the representatives of the churches in a 
certain district, and ordained by those of his own order 
with great solemnity, the various churches keeping 
seasons of prayer and fasting. Sometimes a particular 
church chose a Messenger; but in that case his business 
appears to have been confined to preaching the gospel 
where it was not known; and regulating such churches 
as he might be instrumental in planting. It is indeed 
probable that at the first this was the chief object of 
their appointment ; an object which demanded peculiar 
attention when the nation was just emerging from the 
darkness of Popery and Prelacy, and the rays of 
divine truth had hardly pierced the gloom. Fixed 
pastors could not conveniently itinerate in distant 
parts ; and it would have been thought irregular for 
unauthorized persons to have undertaken it ; but the 
Messengers stood ready for this necessary work, and 
their office called them to it." 

Speaking of these Messengers, or if you please, Apos- 
tles, or Bishops, Mr. Jeffrey observes : — " They were 
appointed for the gathering of churches, and the estab- 
lishment of them." "But when churches increased 
[in numbers] and errors and irregularities sprung up 
among the young converts and inexperienced ministers, 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 103 

it was judged expedient to extend the Messenger's work 
by assigning him the superintendence, and in a sense 
the government, of the churches which united in calling 
them to the office." 

In the Confession of Faith of the General Baptists of 
1678, the duties of these officers are explicitly de- 
scribed as follows : — " The bishops had the government 
of those churches that had suffrage in their election ; 
and no others ordinarily ; as also to preach the word 
to the world." 

Mr. Grantham says of these bishops : — " Their min- 
istry is, 1, To plant churches where there are none ; 2, 
To set in order such churches as want officers to order 
their affairs ; 3, To assist faithful pastors or churches 
against usurpers and such as trouble the peace of par- 
ticular churches by false doctrine." 

Mr. Hook is explicit as to the prerogatives of these 
Baptist bishops. He says they were, "To plant 
churches ; ordain officers ; set in order things that are 
wanting in all the churches ; to defend the gospel 
against gainsayers; and to travel up and down the 
world for this purpose." * 

Such was English Baptist Episcopacy, as to its 
origin, character, purposes, and prerogatives. From 
these General Baptist churches, many immigrated, min- 
isters and laymen, and united with the churches in 
Virginia. They, of course, brought with them their tra- 
ditional feelings and preferences, and were desirous to 
see the churches in their new homes conform to those 

* See Benedict's History of the Baptists, pp. 332, 333, et seq. edition 
in one vol. 



104 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

they loved so much in Britain. But Episcopacy here 
had also another source, by the influence of which that 
of the English Baptists, when adopted in Virginia, had 
engrafted upon it decidedly more of the diocesan char- 
acter. 

Very great numbers of the Early Baptists of Vir- 
ginia had been reared and educated in the Episcopal 
Church. The impressions of childhood are in after 
years effaced with great difficulty. Experimentally 
and practically, they had "learned the way of the 
Lord more perfectly." Ecclesiastical Polity they had 
never investigated. They did not, therefore, see why 
Episcopacy should not obtain among Baptists. They 
had been accustomed to a hierarchy, and to admit as 
Scriptural and conclusive the arguments by which it 
was sustained. Now that the love of Christ had been 
shed abroad in their hearts, they were greatly anxious 
to do and sustain whatever appeared to them to be his 
will. Was Episcopacy really Scriptural and divinely 
appointed ? Then they desired to adopt and practice 
it. Their motives and purposes were undoubtedly of 
the purest character. 

During several years, this was a subject of much con- 
versation among both the ministers and the people, 
and sometimes found a place in their public discourses. 
In 1774, the General Association in annual session re- 
ceived and sustained the following "Query," which 
brought the whole matter directly before that body : — 

" Ought all the ministerial gifts recorded in Ephe- 
sians iv, 11, 12, 13, to be in use at the present 
time?" 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 105 

"He gave some apostles, and some prophets, and 
some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers; for 
the perfecting of the saints ; for the work of the minis- 
try; for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all 
come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of 
the Son of God, unto a perfect man, to the measure 
of the stature of the fulness of Christ." 

Long and anxious deliberations, expositions, and dis- 
cussions ensued, and the following answer was at length 
adopted: "A great majority suppose, that all the mi- 
nisterial gifts recorded in the said Scriptures are, and 
ought to be, still in use in the churches. But we pay 
due regard to the distinction between ordinary and ex- 
traordinary gifts."* 

By this action of the General Association,' the advo- 
cates of Episcopacy had obtained a recognition of the 
principle, although in general and rather evasive terms. 
Their confidence that now they could induce the breth- 
ren to carry it into practice was complete. To that 
body they looked as possessing the requisite authority 
to this end. At its Annual Meeting in 1775, the sub- 
ject was again brought up by a query, as follows: "If 
the ministerial gifts of apostolic times be still in use, 
ought they not to be recognized and instituted by the 
churches in Virginia?" 

Two days were occupied in the debate on this query, 
which took a very wide range, embracing the whole 
subject of Episcopacy in the various phases which it 
has assumed among Catholics, Episcopalians, and Bap- 
tists. A motion was then made that the whole subject 

* Semple's Hist. Va. Baptists, p. 50. 



106 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE OINIA. 

be laid upon the table "until the next Association/' to 
give time for its more full consideration.* This motion 
was carried by a majority, and accordingly the decision 
was postponed for a year. This whole period was oc- 
cupied by the ministers in earnest discussions, and 
especially upon the question, whether it was not their 
duty to revive the office of " Apostle," otherwise known 
as Messenger, or Bishop, and ordain suitable men to 
the discharge of its duties. Jeremiah Walker, who 
was its ablest advocate, wrote and published a pamphlet 
in its support, entitled "Free Thoughts," which had a 
very wide circulation. In this work he presented with 
much skill and eloquence the usual arguments em- 
ployed by Episcopalians in defence of Prelacy, and 
which may be found in any of the works by writers of 
that school on Ecclesiastical Polity. The ablest oppo- 
nent of the measure was Reuben Ford. He also wrote 
and published a pamphlet, not inferior to the other, 
designed to refute the arguments of Mr. Walker, and 
which had a circulation equally wide.f The public 
mind became during the year intensely excited on the 
subject. 

The General Association of 1776 met in Annual 
Session. As was expected, the messengers present were 
very numerous. After the usual preliminary services, 
the all-absorbing proposition was called up, and its 
discussion again commenced. In the process of the de- 
bate, by order of the Association, the pamphlets on 

* Semple's Hist. Va. Baptists, p. 57. 

f I have been unable to find these pamphlets. Are they irrecover- 
ably lost ? Are they not still among Dr. Semple's papers ? _ 






EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. \ 07 

both sides, above referred to, were read in the presence 
of the whole body. A vote was finally decided upon. 
The question as stated by the Moderator was : " Are 
the said offices now in use in Christ's Church?" The 
votes were taken, and it was found that all but three 
were in the affirmative. These three immediately 
arose, and changed their votes. The decision of the 
body was, therefore, recorded as " unanimously in the 
affirmative." 

Another proposition was now presented, as follows : 
" The General Association will proceed immediately to 
establish the said offices by the appointment and ordi- 
nation of proper persons to fill them." 

This proposition elicited no debate, and was decided 
in the affirmative by a unanimous vote. It will be 
noticed, however, that the subsequent action of the 
association was not in consonance with either of the 
propositions it had adopted ! They both include the 
offices, not of Apostles only, but also of Prophets, 
Evangelists, and of Teachers. They had just decided 
to " establish said offices, by the appointment of proper 
persons to fill them ! " Pastors they had of course, but 
they appointed no persons to fill the offices of Proph- 
ets, nor of Evangelists, nor of Teachers ! These, al- 
though they had voted to establish them, they did not 
establish ! They seem to have never been impressed 
with the idea, that, according to the terms of all the 
queries, and all the propositions, these offices were in- 
cluded ; or to have now forgotten them entirely ; and 
to have thought only of the apostleship. 

The Association on motion, decided to appoint and 



108 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

ordain an Apostle ; and at present, but one only ; and 
that the election should be conducted by private ballot. 
The votes were cast, and on being counted it was 
found that Samuel Harris was unanimously elected an 
apostle. 

The next day was, by order, set apart for the ordi- 
nation of Mr. Harris, and the services were conducted 
with great solemnity. It was decided that the whole 
day should be observed by the entire Association as a 
solemn fast, in which the congregation was requested 
to unite. The Association assembled at an early hour, 
and proceeded with the ordination services. Various 
hymns were sung, appropriate Scriptures read, and 
prayer was offered successively by John Waller, Elijah 
Craig, and John Williams. The Apostle elect was 
placed in a central position ; the Presbytery on the oc- 
casion embraced all the preacKers present, and in his 
formal inauguration, by the Moderator, while the 
words of investment and benediction were being pro- 
nounced, the hands of every ordained minister in the 
body were laid upon him. The members then re- 
turned to their seats; Mr. Harris stood in his place, 
and John Waller addressed to him a solemn charge — 
setting forth the nature of his duties, the fearful re- 
sponsibilities he had assumed, and the necessity of hu- 
mility, watchfulness, prayer, and scrupulous fidelity — 
characterized by all the great ability and fervor for 
which that gentleman was distinguished. The right 
hand of fellowship, while an appropriate hymn was 
being sung, was then extended to Mr. Harris, succes- 
sively by every member of the Association, and the 






EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 109 

formalities of the ordination, which had occupied 
nearly the whole day, closed. The diocese of this new 
Apostle was then designated. It embraced the whole 
of that part of Virginia which lies south of the James 
Biver. The Association, with the usual devotional 
forms, then adjourned for the day. 

Thus was inaugurated and sent forth, commended to 
the grace of God by all his brethren, the first Baptist 
Bishop of Virginia. Unhappily he was not the last. 
The people warmly approved this movement, and 
were impatient for the appointment of other Bishops to 
occupy the remaining portion of the State. The Asso- 
ciation was, therefore, by general request, called to- 
gether, in the autumn of the same year, to consider, 
and if thought prudent, to act upon the subject. It 
assembled accordingly, and with the forms observed 
in the case of Mr. Harris, elected and ordained two 
other Apostles, John Waller, and Elijah Craig. Their 
diocese was fixed together, and embraced all that part 
of the State north of the James River. 

At this meeting the duties assigned to the Apostles, 
and in case of their committing sins, the discipline to 
be observed in regard to them, were fixed and re- 
corded by the Association. The duties assigned them 
were as follows : — " To pervade the churches ; to do 
or at least to see to the work of ordination ; to set in 
order the things that are wanting ; and to make report 
to the next Association." The discipline appointed 
was recorded thus : — " If our Messenger, or Apostle, 
shall transgress in any manner, he shall be liable to 
dealing in any church where the transgression is com- 
10 



110 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

mitted, and the said church is instructed to call helps 
from two or three neighboring churches ; and if by 
them convicted of the offence, a General Conference of 
the churches shall be called to excommunicate or to 
restore him."* 

The revolution in Church Polity among the early 
Baptists of Virginia is now complete. It was achiev- 
ed, not without much excitement and discussion, but 
without any division. The circumstances that sur- 
rounded them did not admit of division; their politi- 
cal influence, not to say their safety, would have been 
endangered by it ; they could not successfully resist the 
revolution; they therefore, accepted it unanimously. 
The General Association had assumed powers not ex- 
ceeded by any previous body of clergy in any age, 
Catholic or Protestant. Not only had it created and 
sent forth three diocesan Bishops, under the name of 
"Apostles, or Messengers," but it had taken them, un- 
like the English Baptists, from the jurisdiction of the 
individual churches of which they were members, to 
whose discipline they were no longer subject; ordina- 
tion of ministers was removed from the churches and 
given to the Bishops ; it instructed the churches how to 
proceed in case they should commit offences demanding 
their impeachment; and if in this Lower court an in- 
dictment was sustained, it provided for the organization 
of a High court, to be called "A General Conference of 
the Churches," which should have power "to excom- 
municate or restore them." All this was monstrous, 
but we will not now pursue the subject. "We proceed 

* Sernple's History of the Virginia Baptists, pp. 58, 59. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. l\\ 

to consider the practical workings of this new sys- 
tem. 

The Bishops entered without delay upon the dis- 
charge of their duties. Meantime, by what means is 
not known now, a. reaction had taken place in public 
sentiment on that subject. Their services were not 
cordially accepted by the churches. Animadversions, 
although apparently too late, were renewed, and pro- 
secuted with increased earnestness and solicitude. The 
whole scheme was now thoroughly canvassed by the 
people, not under the influence of fervid addresses 
from the pulpit, but calmly and in the light of the 
gospel. The auspices were very different. The most 
able and eloquent advocates of Episcopacy, whose great 
personal influence and extraordinary powers of persua- 
sion especially carried the measure, had already re- 
tired from the field. They were suspected, whether 
justly or unjustly, of having been themselves desirous 
of reaching the apostleship. None of them were 
elected to this high office. No longer mingling in the 
discussion, the public mind was left to the full in- 
fluence of such counter arguments as were presented. 
The gentlemen themselves who had been ordained 
Bishops, were characterized by great modesty, sin- 
cerity, and piety. They had much more of conscien- 
tiousness than ambition ; and they were not very con- 
fident that their office, and much less that the changes 
in Church Government, consequent upon its institution, 
were justified by the word of God. They were not, 
therefore, solicitous to retain their positions. Now for 
the first time since its agitation, the circumstances sur- 



112 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 

rounding it, and the state of the public mind were 
favorable to a full and impartial investigation of the 
subject. It was so investigated, and the results were 
most salutary. These results may be briefly stated. 

It was ascertained that 'Episcopacy is derived from 
the Old Temple service under the Mosaic dispensation, 
as Presbytery is from- the Synagogue system which pre- 
vailed in the later ages of the Hebrew Commonwealth ; 
and that both are therefore forms of Judaism, which 
Christian churches cannot adopt without a departure 
from the gospel, and consequent irreparable injury; 
that by the law of Christ all Christians individually 
are priests ; that Christ himself is the perpetual and 
only High-priest ; and that priesthood in any sense not 
common to Christians generally, does not as such enter 
at all into the Christian ministry ; that the Apostles, as 
. soon as they had planted and confirmed the churches, 
induced them each to appoint their own pastors and 
teachers, who were their bishops in the true, legitimate 
gospel sense, each being bishop of a single church, and 
no more, and invested with apostolical authority in all 
respects in which that authority ever was transmitted 
to successors ; that instances occurred in apostolic times 
in which individual churches (congregations) had two 
or more bishops, being very numerous, but in no case 
that a single bishop presided over two or more 
churches; that each church (single congregation) was, 
under Christ, sovereign and independent; that it was 
not subject to any power of an earthly character out- 
side of itself, civil or ecclesiastical; and that this sov- 
ereignty and independence, being conferred upon them 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 113 

for special purposes, were inalienable; that, therefore, 
the churches, even if they had desired it, could not 
create, as a governing body, the General Association 
nor any other like organization; that all the proceed- 
ings of that body in this affair were unscriptural, a 
dangerous usurpation, and such as ought to be resisted, 
overthrown, and abolished ; that the Apostles of our 
Lord Jesus Christ were appointed as such, not only to 
preach, to teach, and administer ordinances — duties 
which other ministers, not Apostles, performed in com- 
mon with them, but especially as witnesses to bear tes- 
timony to the doctrines he taught, the miracles he per- 
formed, his death, his burial, his resurrection, his 
ascension, and the descent of the Holy Spirit; that, 
therefore, it was an essential qualification of an Apostle 
that he should have personally seen our Lord Jesus 
Christ, and been instructed by him ; that the Apostles, 
under the guidance of inspiration, recorded their testi- 
mony in the several books that make up the New Tes- 
tament, and that so far as their authority was peculiar, 
it was transmitted and perpetuated, not by men, but by 
that inspired record ; that from the very nature of the 
office as there could, after that record was completed, be 
no further need for Apostles, so it was impossible that 
the twelve could have had any official successors ; that 
the persons designated by the Apostles themselves to 
fill their places as far as they could be filled, were the 
Christian pastors, teachers, and evangelists; that these, 
as the ministers of the word and ordinances, were to be 
perpetuated by the churches themselves, and not by 

bodies apart from them, and acting as either above 

10* 



114 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 

them, or as having any authority to direct or control 
their actions; and that thus the gospel was to be per- 
petuated and extended until the whole world should 
be converted to God. These great truths and princi- 
ples became gradually but surely fixed in the minds of 
the people, and produced a powerful and lasting im- 
pression. The newly appointed Apostles themselves 
partook largely of the feeling of the masses on this 
subject. The tide had turned, and now ran rapidly in 
the other direction. 

Such was the state of feeling under which the Gene- 
ral Association assembled the next year. The Apostles 
reported in desponding terms. The churches had not 
solicited, and they felt disinclined to press their services 
upon them ; they had in their quality as Bishops done 
nothing. Their reports elicited no remarks. No ac- 
tion of the Association was had regarding them. All 
parties seem to have been willing to drop the subject; 
nothing further was said; they were evidently desi- 
rous to forget all that they had done. The Apostles 
ceased to act as such altogether. In a very short 
time the whole thing fell into desuetude. Without 
any rescinding action, or other adverse movement offi- 
cially taken, the Episcopacy was tacitly abandoned. 
Once only afterwards do we hear of the subject. At a 
subsequent annual session of the General Association, 
we find upon its Journal the following record : — » 

" Resolved, That the office of Apostles, like that of 
Prophets, was the effect of miraculous inspiration, and 
does not belong to our times." * 
*Seruple's Hist. Va. Baptists, p. 59. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 115 

This resolution was accompanied by some explana- 
tion, but elicited almost no discussion, and was adopted 
unanimously. All the churches and people were grati- 
fied. The Bishops retired from their unscriptural ele- 
vation, and gladly resumed their places beside their 
brother Presbyters. Such were the origin, progress, 
and end of Episcopacy among the Early Baptists of 
Virginia. 



116 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 



CHAPTER IX. 

CAUSES OF THE REUNION AMONG THE EARLY BAP- 
TISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

Discordances to be overcome. Union in a few vital principles. Ardent 
Christian love. Their indiscriminate persecutions. The political 
ends they mutually sought. 

Never has any denomination readied a more per- 
fect union within itself than was at last attained by 
the Early Baptists of Virginia. This happy result 
was the more remarkable when we consider the dis- 
cordance of the materials of which their churches were 
originally composed. Their ministers, who preached 
before they united with them, were gathered from five 
denominations, the General Baptists and the Particu- 
lar Baptists of England, the Congregationalists and 
Presbyterians of New England, and Episcopalians of 
the Established Church of Virginia ; their members 
were mainly from three — the first two, and the last 
named. To shake off all the prejudices of earlier 
years, to abandon former preferences, and readily to 
fall in with new doctrines, forms, and associations, is 
proverbially difficult. It is well known that the Bap- 
tist churches of the American States, although in some 
respects they have been greatly benefited, in other 
respects have been seriously injured, by the great 
influx of ministers from all the surrounding churches, 
who within the present century, have pressed into, 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 117 

their constantly thickening ranks. Especially have 
they suffered in the purity of doctrine, and the simpli- 
city of their gospel Church Government. Precisely so 
was it in Virginia. We have seen in former chapters, 
the divisions and agitations and conflicts through 
which they passed on both these subjects. Churches 
ought not to be desirous of receiving persons into their 
membership more rapidly than they can be instructed, 
disciplined, and formed into a homogeneous mass. 
Especially ought they to be slow to admit ministers, 

" Who cannot teach, and will not learn." 

Reference has before been made to the independence 
of mind and fervor of feeling which characterized the 
people of Virginia. They had their own convictions 
on all subjects, and they maintained them firmly at 
whatever hazard ; nor were they afraid to carry them 
out practically. When fairly convinced that they 
were in error, but never otherwise, they would readily 
abandon every false way, and ingenuously confess 
their aberrations. They had as much pride in aban- 
doning an error, as in maintaining the truth. 

When all these facts are considered — their diversity 
of origin, their differences in doctrine, their discrepan- 
cies on Church Polity, their actual separations — it is 
wonderful that they were not entirely alienated ; and 
their divisions were not permanently maintained. 
Some powerful causes must have been in action to 
prevent such results. To some of these causes we will 
now refer. 

The first was a profound conviction of the import- 



118 EARL Y BAPTI& TS OF VIE GINIA. 

ance of a few grand principles in which they all stood 
together. 

These were, the necessity of repentance towards God 
and faith in onr Lord Jesus Christ, in order to the 
remission of sins ; regeneration the work of the Holy 
Spirit in the soul of the believer ; church membership 
confined to professed believers in our Lord Jesus 
Christ ; baptism or the Lord's Supper never the medi- 
um ol regeneration or the conferring of the Holy 
Ghost, but in every case declarative only of the faith 
of the recipient ; and the duty of keeping the church 
pure by a strict exercise of discipline in the church it- 
self over its own members. Whatever might be their 
differences on other subjects, on these vital points they 
were, always had been, and always continued to be a 
perfect unity. Their warm agreement here, and their 
high appreciation of the importance to true religion 
of the principles involved, doubtless had much to do 
in holding them together in despite of all their con- 
flicts, and securing at last a perfect and permanent 
reunion. 

A second cause may be found in the ardent Chris- 
tian feeling which, as a whole, characterized the Early 
Baptists of Virginia. 

Their congregations were almost perpetually in a 
state of revival. Brotherly love burned in their hearts. 
They were often side by side at the Lord's table in 
each other's churches. No worldly ambition or jeal- 
ousies existed among them. Literally, as to personal 
religion, "each esteemed other better than himself." 
JSbne of them of either party, Predestinarians or Armi- 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 119 

nians, Independents or Prelatists, sought for themselves 
earthly distinctions, emolument, or place, but only the 
glory of God, the triumph of truth, and the salvation 
of men. It was not, therefore, difficult for them to 
harmonize on any other subject connected with the re- 
ligion of Christ. 

A third cause of their perfect and permanent reunion 
was undoubtedly the indiscriminate persecutions waged 
against them all alike by the State Church. 

All parties suffered together ; all suffered alike ; and 
all suffered as Baptists. Whether General Baptists or 
Particular Baptists, or as the same parties were after- 
wards called, Separate Baptists or Kegular Baptists; 
or whether they were the advocates or the opponents 
of the mooted Episcopacy ; it made no difference with 
their determined pursuers. The leaders, lay and mi- 
nisterial, of all parties found themselves together in 
the hands of the State officers ; before the Courts of 
law ; and in the prisons of the several counties, charged 
with the crime of holding conventicles, preaching to 
the people, and other similar heinous offences against 
the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth. These 
companionships necessarily produced powerful results, 
both upon the men themselves, who thereby became 
personally strongly endeared to each other, and upon 
their friends everywhere, whose sympathies all ran in 
the same channel. To these facts references were con- 
stantly made in all their negotiations with each other 
looking to reunion. This was doubtless the feeling 
which prompted that affecting remark, before noticed, 
contained in one of their official communications, in 



120 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

which one party, in answer to an earnest overture for 
union, said to the other party sending it: 

"Your Christian fellowship seems nearly as dear to 
us as our lives." 

How could two such parties remain asunder? No- 
thing is more natural or more inevitable than that such 
men, under such circumstances, whatever their original 
differences, should come together, and that their union 
should be as complete and as harmonious as any of 
which imperfect human beings are capable. 

The last cause which need now be mentioned, was 
the necessity of concentrating all their influence and 
efforts to gain those political ends, for the attainment of 
which, especially, the General Association was orga- 
nized. 

What these ends were, we shall have occasion to ex- 
plain more fully when we come to examine the influ- 
ence of the Baptists of Virginia in the formation of the 
government of the State, in destroying the connection 
between the Government and the Established Church, 
and in the final repeal of all laws infringing religious 
freedom and denominational equality. In the General 
Association all classes of Baptists mingled, and always 
did mingle together on equal and common ground. 
If divided and in conflict with each other, with their 
energies enfeebled and their powers thus prostituted 
and debased, what could they have hoped to accom- 
plish ? Nobly did they spurn such petty warfare, and 
generously did they unite their forces to achieve the 
most happy results. No one sacrificed a particle of 
principle. Happily no such sacrifice was either neces- 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 121 

saiy or demanded. The diversities among them were 
found to be no greater than are usually found among 
the members of the same church, and to deal with 
which is never thought to be necessary or beneficial. 
They all became one harmonious and gallant army, 
which now marched forward in its strength, conquering 
and to conquer. 

These, with the blessing of Almighty God, were 
some of the chief causes which led to the reunion of 
the Early Baptists of Virginia. Eegular and Sepa- 
rate Baptists, as such, were known no more. Apostle- 
ship, as an office in the church in our time, except as a 
vagary into which for a short period the fathers had at 
one time unhappily fallen, ceased to be remembered. 
All were United Baptists, not in name only, but also 
"in deed and in truth." 



11 



1 22 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 



CHAPTER X. 

EVILS THAT PEEV AILED AMONG THE EARLY BAP- 
TISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

The failure of their educational plans. Their mistakes regarding the 
use of money as a means of extending religion. Their conduct as to 
ivealth and social position. Their neglect in regard to books. Their 
carelessness in reference to centres of influence. Their errors regard- 
ing the unaided force of truth. Injudicious ordinations of ministers. 

Seeds of evil were early sown among the Baptists 
of Virginia which subsequently sprung up, and have 
produced much bitter fruit. Nearly all the perplexi- 
ties and injuries with which during the present century 
they have had to contend, had then their incipient be- 
ginning. To some of these, fidelity requires that we 
shall briefly refer. 

1. The Early Baptists of Virginia failed, unhap- 
pily, to take their proper part in the education of the 
people of the State. 

This failure resulted disastrously in various ways, 
some of which we will briefly designate. It is proper, 
however, to say that it did not arise from any want of 
interest on the general subject. They fully appreciated 
education for themselves and others. They also moved ' 
in the matter at a very early day, as early at least as 
the Presbyterians, who have since regarded themselves 
as the special patrons of learning. We will present a 
sketch of their proceedings on that subject. 

The interests of education claimed for the first time 






EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. \ 23 

publicly the attention of the denomination in 1788. 
The General Committee held its annual session at Du 
Fuy's, in August of that year. A letter to that body 
from Dr. Manning, President of Providence College, 
now Brown University, in Rhode Island, was laid be- 
fore it. That letter has never been published, and is 
therefore, if it exists at all, not accessible to the present 
writer. Its contents may be understood by the action 
of the Committee to which it led. After the reading: 
and consideration of the letter, the following resolution 
was unanimously adopted : 

" Resolved , That a committee of [ten members] five 
persons on each side of James River be appointed to 
forward the business respecting a seminary of learn- 
ing." 

This committee was composed of the ablest and most 
influential Baptists in the Commonwealth. Those on 
the south side of the river were Samuel Harris, John 
Williams, Eleazer Clay, Simeon Walton, and David 
Barrow; and those of the north side of the river were 
Robert Carter, John Waller, William Fristoe, John 
Leland, and Reuben Ford. 

The annual meeting of the Committee for the next 
year was held in the city of Richmond. The com- 
mittee on "A Seminary of Learning" reported. That 
report has not been preserved, and therefore its con- 
tents cannot be stated. All that is of record is that 
the committee, with several changes in its membership, 
was reappointed, with instructions to exert itself with 
reference to the important interests committed to its 
care, and to report the next year. Three years past, 



124 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

and although the subject mis annually called up, and 
discussed, no progress was made by the committee. 

The meeting of the General Committee for 1793 was 
held at Muddy Creek, in Powhattan County. Here 
the subject was again discussed, and the enterprise 
warmly advocated by several members. The old com- 
mittee was discharged, and on motion, Eev. John Wil- 
liams and Thomas Reicl, Esq., of Charlotte, were ap- 
pointed to prepare, and submit during the session, a 
plan for the proposed school. These gentlemen re- 
ported the next day, and proposed as follows : — 

"That the General Committee now appoint fourteen 
trustees, all of whom shall be Baptists ; that these four- 
teen at their first meeting appoint seven others, who 
shall be of other denominations; and that the whole 
twenty-one trustees then form a plan for the desired 
Seminary, and make arrangements for its execution." 

This report was adopted ; the fourteen trustees pro- 
posed were appointed; some weeks afterwards they 
met, and appointed the additional seven ; they devised 
a plan to carry the school into operation ; some funds 
were necessary for buildings and other purposes; they 
set about collecting them; they failed to obtain a suffi- 
cient amount; they so reported to the General Com- 
mittee at its next annual meeting; and here for the 
time the whole matter terminated. 

The enterprise was not again called up for fifteen 
years, and then in a modified form. At the annual 
meeting of the General Meeting of Correspondence, 
held at Tarwallet, commencing October 20th, 1809, it 
was proposed to "establish some Seminary or Public 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 125 

School, to assist young preachers to acquire literary 
knowledge." The project was favorably entertained, 
and "two members were appointed to acquire informa- 
tion and digest a plan for such a seminary." So far as 
is now known, "no report was ever made, and no fur- 
ther action was had." * The Virginia Baptists are in- 
deed now not behind the very foremost denomination 
in the number and efficiency of their colleges and 
other schools, but to refer more fully to them would 
carry us too far beyond the chronological limits pre- 
scribed to these brief chapters. These facts are not re- 
putable to the Early Baptists of Virginia, but they 
are due to the truth of history, and are here adduced 
to show that they were not indifferent to the value and 
importance of education to the people generally, and 
to ministers especially. 

1. This failure lost to them, and placed in the hands 
of their opponents, one among the most effectual of all 
the means that are used for the advancement of denom- 
inational interests. 

So cordially did the Baptists abhor all proselyting, 
that they refused to employ education as an auxiliary 
to denominational advancement. They despised sec- 
tarianism of every character, and looked with loathing 
upon any man who would use his influence as a 
teacher to give a denominational bias to the minds of 
his pupils. In all these respects their sentiments were 
exalted and noble, but they carried them too far. 
They retired, to a great extent, from the field of educa- 
tion, and left it in the hands of others, who had no 

*Semple's History of the Virginia Baptists, pp. 77, 89. 

11* 



126 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF YIRGIXIA. 

such scruples as governed them, but who employed all 
these means, and to the utmost extent, for their own 
denominational advantage. With the reputation of 
being intensely sectarian, the Baptists were then, and 
are now, the most unsectarian class of Christians in the 
country. Very few of them sought places as teachers 
in any of the Academies, Colleges, or Universities of 
the State. The education of the people was, therefore, 
left in the hands of the sects around them, and espe- 
cially of the Presbyterians, the smallest and weakest of 
them all. These sects carried with them, therefore, a 
large portion of the educated classes, and among them 
not a few of the children of Baptists themselves. 

By this failure, the Baptists incurred the reproach of 
being the enemies of education. 

This slander was, for sectarian purposes, industri- 
ously propagated, and especially among the young 
people in their schools. The Baptists took no pains to 
remove it. The people at last believed it. It became 
stereotyped. The pulpit and the press boldly declared it. 
The practical effect was crushing. The educated classes 
were turned away from them, and it was pitiful to see 
the descendants of those very men who had been impri- 
soned, fined, and whipped by Pedobaptists for their prin- 
ciples, now in league with their very persecutors, and 
leading members of the identical churches which so bit- 
terly pursued and punished their fathers ! The injurious 
results of this one source of evil, who can fully estimate ? 

2. The early Baptists of Virginia failed to perceive 
the true relation between religion and the use of money 
as a means for its advancement. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 127 

We can readily trace the sources of this error, but 
the consequences were not on that account the less dis- 
astrous. The Episcopal clergy, supported by the State, 
were generally mere hirelings. The salaries they re- 
ceived were their only motive for preaching. When 
that was withheld they preached no more. The Bap- 
tists, with other citizens of the State, were taxed to 
make up these salaries, and compelled to pay the assess- 
ment. The Presbyterian clergy, though sustained by 
their own congregations, were the advocates of taxa- 
tion by the State for the support of religion, and they 
made long and strenuous efforts to secure for their own 
churches a share in the support thus created. The 
Baptists alone, as we shall hereafter see, were the ad- 
vocates of " The voluntary principle," and for a series 
of years they maintained it in opposition to all other 
denominations. In their conflicts against the union of 
Church and State, and the measures adopted by the 
Government for the support of religion ; and in their 
infinite disgust, created by the course of all classes of 
Pedobaptist ministers and churches in regard to it, so 
intensely excited did they become, that they could see 
but one side of the subject, and were, therefore, be- 
trayed into a most injurious extreme. Partly on these 
accounts, and partly to be above even the suspicion of 
mercenary motives, many of their ministers refused all 
pecuniary compensation whatever for their services, 
and not one would consent to any fixed salary from 
the church of which he was pastor. Several conse- 
quences resulted of an injurious character, to which we 
will barely allude. 



128 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

One of these consequences was an almost entire 
withdrawal of money from the list of instrumentali- 
ties, to be used for the advancement of the cause of 
Christ. The people were left without any adequate 
instruction on this subject. The mention of money 
always brought up to their minds the Harpies of the 
State Church, their harassments in reference to tax- 
ation, and the Judases of all classes, who sell their 
Lord for paltry silver. They were not, indeed, in- 
structed to hoard money, or to refuse to give liberally 
to any cause which they believed worthy ; but gen- 
erally they were rather encouraged to withhold it 
altogether from all religious projects. As a conse- 
quence, any enterprise among Baptists which required 
the use of money, beyond the building of a meeting- 
house, or the support of the poor of the church, was 
for many years almost impossible. To this cause un- 
doubtedly is due the failure in both instances, of the 
educational designs of 1788 and 1809, to which we 
have before referred. 

Another of these evil consequences, was the failure 
of the churches adequately to support their pastors. 
This failure became a prolific source of disasters. 
Obliged to provide for his family as best he could, by 
his own personal labors, the pastor had no time either 
to read extensively or to prepare carefully for the pul- 
pit ; or beyond a sermon on Lord's Day, to perform 
any pastoral work whatever ; only the wealthy could 
devote themselves to the ministry, without bringing 
suffering and distress upon the loved ones at home; 
young men qualified, by the possession of piety and 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 129 

talents, for the work of the ministry, and doubtless 
called to it by God, resisted, and in most cases suc- 
cessfully, their sense of duty, and never preached. 
The prospect of a life of laborious toil, unrequited 
anxiety, and of certain poverty with all its concomi- 
tants, which the Baptist ministry of that day pre- 
sented to them, was sufficiently repulsive. No one 
entered it who could do otherwise, and satisfy his 
conscience ; and even the sermons preached were too 
often, since the ministers had no time to prepare 
them, necessarily superficial and feeble. Under such 
influences as these, the churches of no denomination 
could long continue to be successful. 

Yet another injury arising from a failure of the 
Baptist Fathers to perceive the true relations between 
religion and the use of money as a means of its ad- 
vancement, was the countenance thus given to some 
most odious imputations, constantly heaped upon them 
by their adversaries. It was everywhere charged, that 
as a whole, and individually, Baptists were close, 
penurious, covetous, narrow-hearted men. That these 
charges would justly apply to no Baptists of that day, 
it is not necessary to affirm, but that it was charac- 
teristic of them generally as a class, was most false 
and unjust. In common with the citizens of Vir- 
ginia generally, they were known to be profuse in 
their hospitality ; when money was wanted for any 
patriotic, moral, or social purposes, their contributions 
were as liberal and as cheerfully made as those of any 
of their neighbors. In no respect did they in ordi- 
nary matters differ from their fellow-citizens of the 



130 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

other denominations. Why then did they not sustain 
their pastors, and carry on vigorously among them- 
selves other religious enterprises ? Was it their fault 
that they failed in these respects? Certainly not. 
These very pastors had instilled into their minds 
strong prejudices against the use of money for any 
such purposes. They were themselves the sufferers, 
and the churches and the cause suffered irretrievably. 

3. The manner in which the rich and aristocratic 
among the Early Baptists of Virginia habitually ex- 
pressed themselves in society regarding their churches 
and ministers, proved to be an evil of very great mag- 
nitude. 

The ministry and churches of that day were not, to 
any great extent, nor are those of the present day, com- 
posed of the elite, par excellence, who revel in luxury, 
and pride themselves, not upon their own personal 
talents and powers, but upon the exalted position and 
great deeds of a long since buried ancestry. The Bap- 
tists were the masses of the people. " Not many rich, 
not many noble, " were among them. They counted 
in their membership, as all true churches ever will, 
many of the "poor, who were rich in faith and heirs of 
the kingdom," who generally proved the truest, most 
useful, and best friends of the cause. Of the rich, the 
proud, and the high-born, the churches contained but 
too many for their own happiness and prosperity. 
The countenance which these classes gave to the asper- 
sions of their enemies, imparted to them all the poAver 
of mischief they ever had. Men and women of this 
class, whose hearts God by his Holy Spirit had 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 131 

changed, were compelled by stress of conscience, to 
unite with the churches. They did so, and all their 
lifetime afterwards, were unhappily on every occasion 
boasting of the sacrifices they had thereby made — sac- 
rifices of society, friendships, and the refinements of 
social life ! To talk of " the poor Baptists " whom 
they had joined for the sake of truth ; to tell anecdotes 
of the awkwardness and illiteracy of some of their 
ministers, whom they had seen or of whom they had 
heard ; to detail the opposition of their families, or of 
their friends, to their " throwing themselves away " by 
joining the Baptists, became with them a passion. 
Strange as it may seem, this spirit assumed epidemical 
form, and pervaded all classes ; it found expression 
even from the pulpit ; it was reiterated from the very 
obscurest of the members, who it seems were anxious 
to be in fashion with their more cultivated brethren ! 
Upon their own minds the effect was most melan- 
choly, since they could not cherish a warm regard for 
persons whose character and position they were ever 
disparaging. Upon the minds of their children the 
results were much worse. Generally they had no re- 
spect for Baptist ministers, and seldom heard them 
preach ; Baptist people they regarded as unfit society 
for them ; and when they professed religion, very 
often joined consequently other denominations, who 
were perhaps really less cultivated, intelligent, and 
wealthy than the Baptists ! Such were the outrageous 
calumnies which were originated among themselves ; 
which were perpetuated in certain quarters ; and 
which other denominations delighted to repeat, and 



132 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

extend; and such were the terrible results to which 
they led. It would be unjust, however, to the 
memory of the Fathers, should we fail to add, that 
this temper was not indulged by all the rich, the ex- 
alted, and the cultivated of that day, nor indeed by 
those who partook most of these characteristics. Not 
a few there were in the churches, in whose veins 
coursed the blood of the proudest Cavaliers in the 
Commonwealth, who loved the Saviour, his cause, and 
his people too much to allow themselves to speak and 
act thus foolishly. It is proper here to say that the 
Baptists as a whole, were in all respects, equal at least, 
to the same number of men and women, taken promis- 
cuously from society in this or any other country. 

4. Their carelessness in defending the honor of their 
churches and people was another evil which prevailed 
among the Early Baptists of Virginia. 

The Lord gave them, as we have seen, with some 
internal agitations and conflicts, extraordinary pros- 
perity. On this account, and on some others, they 
were greatly envied and hated by the sects around 
them, by whom they were perpetually attacked and 
defamed. Reproaches of the gravest character were 
consequently cast upon them. To some of these we 
have referred. But these were not all. It was 
charged, that as a class, the Baptists were disreputably 
ignorant; that they refused to be enlightened; that 
their ministers generally were raving fanatics; that 
they were penurious and narrow-minded; that they 
were of questionable moral habits ; that they paid no 
regard to the moral training of their children ; and 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 133 

many other imputations of a similar character ! These 
falsehoods poured in an unending stream from the 
pulpit and from the press. That Baptists should feel 
for them the profoundest contempt was very natural. 
Hence only an occasional reference was made to them 
in any of their public meetings. An instance occurred 
at the Annual Session of the General Meeting of Cor- 
respondence in 1808. Dr. Sempie says: — * 

" It appeared from some late publications, that the 
Baptists in Virginia had been misrepresented as to 
their sentiments respecting human learning. It was 
determined at this meeting, to rebut this calumny by 
publishing a few remarks on that subject, in the form 
of a circular letter, which was accordingly done." 

But who read that fugitive "Circular Letter?" 
Probably a few Baptists only. Where is it now ? It 
has long since, as is presumed, been lost. Nor have 
the modern Baptists of Virginia done much better. 
Who among them has even attempted, in any form, 
to " rebut the calumnies of Dr. Hawks, of Dr. Foote, 
of Dr. Alexander, or of Bishop Meade ?" Not one. 
Ought the Fathers to have thus left these unmerited 
reproaches, and injurious misrepresentations uncon- 
tradicted and unexposed? What can he do for the 
cause of truth and salvation, in whose intelligence, 
honor, and integrity, the public have ceased to repose 
entire confidence ? Their duty to Christ demanded an 
ample and adequate defence. But they were almost 
entirely silent, and permitted all these reproaches to 
float into the current of literature, and from the in- 

* History of the Virginia Baptists, p. 88. 
12 



134 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

juries thus inflicted, the Baptist churches of our 
country have until the present hour not entirely re- 
covered. 

5. The Early Baptists of "Virginia, committed a 
serious error in their failures to plant churches in the 
cities and other important centres of influence in the 
commonwealth. 

These centres of influence are like the fortresses and 
strongholds of a country. The party that possesses 
them exerts over the whole nation a power hard to 
be successfully resisted. Gloriously did they establish 
the truth throughout the country. To the cities they 
gave very little attention. Successfully to have culti- 
vated them, would have required much policy and 
management, and they were not, in these respects 
especially, men of policy and management. They 
preached when and where God's blessing upon their 
efforts seemed to them for the moment most rich and 
abundant. These centres of influence were probably 
not very highly appreciated by them. However this 
might have been, they were left to the occupancy of 
other denominations, who were more patient and far- 
sighted than themselves. The various Pedobaptist 
churches industriously availed themselves of the op- 
portunity to occupy them nearly all, and at the expense 
of the Baptists. Hardly yet have they obtained in 
them a position equal to that of their Pedobaptist 
neighbors. 

6. The Early Baptists of Virginia, were also mis- 
taken as to the extent in which unassisted truth will 
take care of itself. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 135 

The correctness of their principles they never 
doubted. That they must by their own inherent force 
very soon triumph, they felt an unwavering assurance. 
They failed to consider the powerful influences con- 
stantly operating to counteract and destroy them. 
They could not understand how any sincere lover of 
Christ, with the Bible in his hand, could seriously 
oppose these principles. They were themselves unso- 
phisticated, honest men. They seem to have suspected 
no one of sinister motives, or ambitious designs. They 
abjured, therefore, all management and all indirect- 
ness. They consequently often found their designs 
thwarted and defeated ; the truth lying wounded and 
crushed; and error in its most brazen form proudly 
triumphant. They did not give to truth all the neces- 
sary supports which its permanent triumph demanded. 

7. Injury to the Baptist churches also resulted from 
their carelessness in regard to the qualifications of their 
ministers. 

They with propriety refused to demand, as necessary 
to their ordination, any specified amount of literary 
and scientific culture. Profound knowledge of the 
word of God may exist associated with very limited 
attainments in human learning. Not a few men thus 
characterized, are much more useful as ministers, than 
are many of the classically trained. Learning of 
itself cannot make a minister of even a truly Christian 
man. He must have the native mind and powers — 
what the fathers so aptly called " the gifts " — essential 
to success. Cultivation in literature, the sciences, and 
the arts is always highly desirable, but not always es- 



136 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

sential. In these respects, the fathers judged and acted 
wisely. In some important instances, however, they 
seem to have forgotten that fervent zeal, excellent as it 
is in itself, cannot supply the absence both of mental 
power and knowledge. They ordained to the work of 
the ministry therefore, some men who were, indeed, 
excellent, earnest, devoted, self-sacrificing Christians, 
but wholly unqualified to perform the high duties 
assigned them. The intelligent and thoughtful among 
the churches knew how to apologize for the weak- 
nesses and failures of these preachers, but the masses, 
and especially of their congregations, were scandalized 
and repelled. Through this means, the cause of Christ 
among them suffered serious and lasting injury. 

8. The Early Baptists of Virginia failed to supply 
the people with suitable books for their instruction. 

They preached and prayed and labored with inde- 
fatigable industry. They taught the people daily and 
from house to house, verbally ; but they left with them 
no books to second their instructions ; nor did they 
place any of a suitable character within their reach. 
Of this neglect, the Pedobaptists promptly availed 
themselves, and distributed liberally, everywhere, their 
denominational literature. In this way the force of 
Baptist teaching was painfully abated, and the minds 
of thousands were permanently perverted, and turned 
aside from the truth. Of these facts, the fathers them- 
selves were not entirely oblivious. The subject was 
brought to the attention of the General Association on 
various occasions. During the Anniversary held in 
May, 1800, the General Meeting of Correspondence 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 137 

was charged with the duty of moving in the premises. 
The plan it devised, but did not execute, was thus 
substantially sketched by Dr. Semple :* 

" They were instructed to collect and publish useful 
pieces, somewhat in the form of a Magazine, and sell 
it to defray its expenses." 

This enterprise, so praiseworthy in its inception, 
was probably never commenced. At subsequent 
sessions some valuable books were distributed, and 
others were recommended for publication. Here the 
whole matter rested. Pedobaptist books flowed into 
all the channels of circulation. Besides the Bible, 
Baptists distributed almost no others. Had they then 
gone actively into the business of publication and 
colportage, as they did fifty years afterwards, how 
great the blessing they would have conferred upon the 
world generally, and the Baptist churches especially ! 

These mainly, were the evils which had their origin 
among the Early Baptists of Virginia, and which 
have since so sorely afflicted the churches ; the Baptists 
failed to take their part in the education of the peo- 
ple ; they mistook the true relation between religion 
and the use of money, as a means of its advance- 
ment ; the manner in which certain classes of their 
members were accustomed to express themselves in 
society, in regard to the churches generally, and the 
ministers especially; their carelessness in defending 
the honor of their churches and people ; their neglect 
to plant churches in the cities and other important 
centres of influence in the commonwealth ; their mis- 

* History of the Virginia Baptists, p. 87. 
12* 



138 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

take as to the extent to which unassisted truth will 
take care of itself; their carelessness in regard to the 
qualifications of their ministers for the work assigned 
them ; and their failure to supply the people with 
suitable books for their instruction. These errors 
were all most unhappy in themselves, and in their 
consequences. Of their nature and extent, it is hoped 
the people are now fully aware. Much has been done 
to correct them, and by the blessing of God, they will, 
it is believed, be effectually surmounted. 2so one can 
doubt, however, that through their influence the 
churches are at this moment far inferior in numbers, 
influence, and usefulness, to what they might have 
been under an administration more wise and judicious. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 139 



CHAPTER XL 

POLITICAL ACTION OF THE BAPTIST GENERAL ASSO- 
CIATION. 

Design of the General Association of Virginia. Its declaration of 
principles on political subjects. Principles of the primitive Chris- 
tians. Of the English Baptists. Its memorials to the Convention 
and Legislature. Ilemorials of the other denominations. Its com- 
missioners. Baptist principles embodied in the Virginia Constitu- 
tion. 

The General Association of the Baptists of Vir- 
ginia, as we have seen in a former chapter, was an 
organization designed mainly for political purposes, 
and to be temporary in its continuance. It entered, 
therefore, fully — as did the General Committee of Cor- 
respondence by which it was superceded, and the Gen- 
eral Meeting of Correspondence into which that was 
finally merged — into all the State questions of the day, 
and with great zeal and effect into all those which had 
any bearing upon the religious rights of the people. 
These questions were regularly brought before them at 
their Annual Meetings, carefully canvassed, their de- 
cisions recorded, and their commissioners appointed to 
attend the Legislature, represent their views to its 
members, and, if possible, secure their adoption by 
that body. A similar course was pursued by the other 
denominations, but they acted regularly through their 
established church organizations. The Baptists found 
it necessary to institute a new body, through which to 



140 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

concentrate their energies, and bring their influence to 
bear upon the government of the State. 

During the first three years of its existence, its pro- 
ceedings of a political character, had reference mainly 
to the persecutions waged against the Baptists by the 
Colonial rulers, under the pressure of the State Church 
party. Measures were proposed in the General Asso- 
ciation, discussed publicly, and at length adopted, and 
afterwards carried rigorously into effect, to assist their 
imprisoned and suffering brethren ; days of fasting 
and prayer were appointed and devoutly observed; 
and the brethren were solicited to offer constant 
prayers to God, that he would be merciful to their 
" poor blind persecutors," and deliver his people from 
the religious and political thraldom in which they were 
then so painfully bound. All classes of Baptists, since 
they all suffered together, were represented in the 
General Association, and all became intensely inter- 
ested. "We have before seen how much these consid- 
erations had to do in inducing that body to seek their 
full and permanent reunion, and in achieving this 
most happy result. 

The session of the General Association of 1774 was 
that which committed itself to the doctrine of Episco- 
pacy, which in the eighth chapter of this work has 
been described with sufficient particularity. 

Time wore on. The controversy of the Colonies 
with the Mother Country, which had been so long 
rising, now grew rapidly warmer and more intense. 
It had almost reached its utmost height. Virginia, es- 
pecially, was heaving like a volcano, whose pent-up 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 141 

fires it was evident could not much longer be repressed. 
Measures had been adopted by the authority of the 
Colony, to assemble a Convention to consider the state 
of the country generally, and of Virginia particularly ; 
and devise, if practicable, some effectual means for 
their defence and safety. These were the circumstan- 
ces, religious and political, under which the General 
Association assembled in 1775. The meeting was 
held at Manokin Town, and commenced its session on 
the fourth Saturday in May. Sixty churches were in 
attendance by their messengers, besides the delegations 
from the various District Associations. The assembly 
was immense in numbers, and characterized by the 
presence of extraordinary talents. Such men were in 
attendance as Harris and Metcalf, Lovell and Har- 
gitt, Maneese and Chastaine, Johnston and Walker, 
Ellington and Williams, Childs, Thompson, Tribble, 
Waller, Burruss, Ford, Twyman, Bennett, Eve, Mun- 
roe, Peyton, Holtsclaugh, Winters, Marshall, Pickett, 
and many others of like reputation and abilities. 

After the painful agitations arising in this session 
from the doctrinal discussions, of which we had occa- 
sion to speak in the seventh chapter of this work, and 
the happy union to which they led, the General Asso- 
ciation proceeded to consider what would be proper to 
be done by them in the existing political crisis of the 
country. They decided to embody their opinions and 
desires in an address to be presented to the State Con- 
vention, then soon to assemble in Richmond. A com- 
mittee, the names and number of which are not re- 
corded, was appointed and charged with the duty of 



142 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

preparing the proposed address. After completing the 
other business of the session, the General Association 
adjourned to meet again at Du Puy's, in Cumberland, 
now Powhattan County, on the second Saturday in 
August, to give the Committee time to accomplish the 
work assigned it. 

The General Association assembled at the time and 
place appointed. The committee reported the address, 
which was carefully canvassed, and after a deliberation 
of two days, unanimously adopted. Rev. Messrs. 
Jeremiah Walker, John Williams, and George Rob- 
erts, were appointed commissioners on the part of the 
Baptists of Virginia to present their address to the 
Convention ; and these gentlemen were especially in- 
structed to remain at the Capitol during the session, to 
mingle and converse freely with the members of the 
Convention, and to employ every^honorable means to 
attain the ends proposed. 

These two sessions of the General Association were, 
in their character and results, as subsequent events have 
shown, among the most important meetings which have 
ever been held by any Christian people since the days 
of the Apostles. Their movement was precisely at the 
most favorable moment, and was fully and wholly in 
the proper direction. Referring to the circumstances 
of the times and the spirit of the churches and people, 
Dr. Semple remarks:* 

"The discontents in America, arising from British 
oppression, were drawing to a crisis." "This was a 
very favorable season for the Baptists. Having been 

* History of the Virginia Baptists, p. 62. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 143 

much ground under British laws," "they were, to a 
man, favorable to any revolution by which they could 
obtain freedom of religion." 

The address, which was adopted, and which was filed 
among the State papers of Virginia, contemplated two 
objects: the freedom of the colony from British rule, 
and the freedom of religion from all government tram- 
mels and direction. The former of these objects is thus 
noticed in the journals of the Convention : 

"An address from the Baptists of this colony was 
presented and read, setting forth that, however distin- 
guished from their countrymen by appellations and 
sentiments of a religious nature, they nevertheless con- 
sidered themselves as members of the same community 
in respect to matters of a civil nature, and embarked in 
the same common cause; that alarmed at the oppression 
which hangs over America, they had considered what 
part it would be proper for them to take in the unhappy 
contest, and had determined that in some cases it is 
lawful to go to war; and that we ought to make a 
military resistance to Great Britain in her unjust inva- 
sion, tyrannical oppression, and repeated hostilities; 
that their brethren had liberty at discretion to enlist 
[in the service of the country] without incurring the 
censure of their religious community ; and that, under 
the circumstances, many had enlisted as soldiers; and 
that many more were ready to join the army;" "that 
their ministers would encourage the young men of their 
churches and congregations to enter the service; and 
that they asked for themselves permission to serve the 
army in the capacity of Chaplains."* 

* Journal of the Convention, p. 17. 



144 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

These representations show that the Baptists were in 
the van of the American patriots of those days. Not 
all, even of the leaders of the people, were as yet ready 
to break with England. They were anxious to secure 
their rights and obtain for their preservation satisfactory 
guaranties ; but they believed that this could be done 
without forfeiting the protection of the British crown, 
which they wished to retain, or incurring a war, the 
issue of which they feared might not be favorable to 
the colonies. "The Baptists, to a man, were in favor 
of revolution." The Convention, as is well known, 
ultimately instructed the delegates in the Colonial Con- 
gress to vote for the Declaration of American Indepen- 
dence. Upon this act, Virginia patriotism has ever 
prided itself. The Baptists, as a body, and unanimously, 
had long before taken the same position now assumed 
by the Convention. To what extent the Cenvention 
was moved to that gallant proceeding by the Baptist 
address, and the presence and constant exhortations of 
their able commissioners, is an inquiry which every man 
will decide for himself. If, however, this great action 
reflected honor upon the Convention, the same action 
previously taken by the Baptists reflects still higher 
honor upon them; and it becomes exalted and noble 
when it is remembered, that they urged it upon the 
Convention as a duty which it owed, not to Virginia 
only, but to the whole nation. 

The second object sought in this address of the Gene- 
ral Association of Virginia was " Religious Freedom," 
not alone for themselves, but also for the whole people. 
As an expression of their views on this subject, they 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 145 

embodied in their address a formal Declaration of the 
Principles they held, and which had been maintained 
by Baptists in all ages. We copy the following ex- 
tract : 

" We hold that the mere toleration of religion by the 
civil government is not sufficient; that no State Reli- 
gious Establishment ought to exist ; that all religious 
denominations ought to stand upon the same footing ; 
and that to all alike the protection of the Government 
should be extended, securing to them the peaceable 
enjoyment of their own religious principles and modes 
of worship."* 

How slow have men been in all ages to learn the 
truths here so explicitly stated ! How difficult it has 
been for them to perceive the difference between reli- 
gious toleration and religious freedom ! How prone to 
confound them together, and regard them as substan- 
tially the same ! The two are, indeed, far asunder as 
the poles. Toleration, in its best form, is essentially 
partial and unjust. Freedom is just, generous, benefi- 
cent. Toleration implies a privilege granted by a su- 
perior to an inferior party. It contains within itself 
an assertion of the right to withdraw it at pleasure, 
and therefore the right to persecute dissenters from the 
religion of the stronger party. The acceptance of tole- 
ration is a confession that Government may dictate the 
religion of the governed, and has the right to enforce 
its demands in that behalf, since the power which has 
the right to make a law has also the right to execute 
its provisions and punish its infractions. Religious 

* Sample's History of the Virginia Baptists, p. 62. 
13 



146 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

freedom is altogether of another character. It is a 
right which God gives to every man ; it is prior to all 
human governments, and beyond their control; it is 
inalienable ; it cannot be abridged nor withdrawn by 
thrones, by hierarchies, nor by legislatures. The prin- 
ciples of religious freedom were announced nearly nine- 
teen centuries ago by Jesus himself, when he said to 
the Jews : " Render, therefore, unto Csesar the things 
which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are 
God's." They were understood by the Christians of 
the third century, and were embodied in the Memorial 
they presented to Constantine the Great on his acces- 
sion to the throne of the Roman Empire. They peti- 
tioned, as affirmed by Eusebius, not for toleration, but 
for absolute religious freedom for themselves and for 
all other men of whatever creed. That Emperor readily 
granted their prayer, and issued "An Ordinance" in 
which he said : 

"As we long since perceived that Religious Liberty 
should not be denied, but that it should be granted to 
the opinions and wishes of each one to perform divine 
duties according to his own determination, we had given 
orders that each one, and the Christians among the 
rest, have the liberty to observe the religion of his 
choice, and his peculiar mode of worship." " We have 
resolved, among the first things, to ordain those matters 
by which reverence and worship to the Deity might be 
exhibited; that is, how we may grant likewise to the 
Christians, and to all, the free choice to follow that 
mode of worship which they may wish." * 

* Cruise's Eusebius, p. 426. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 147 

The principles of religious liberty shine forth re- 
splendently in the memorable Protest of the Donatists, 
"Quid est imperatori cum ecclesia." The doctrines of 
Arnold of Brescia on that subject, who was the "avail t 
courier " of the Reformation, were truly worthy of that 
great man. These principles inscribe condemnation 
upon the creeds of Luther, of Calvin, of Zwingle, and 
of Bucer, every one of which gives the civil magistrate 
coercive power in religion. They clothe with honor 
the German Anabaptists of 1560, and make distiu- 
guished the names of Helwysse, of Bunyan, and of 
Roger Williams. But in America they were first, since 
the days of Constantine, successfully asserted ; and its 
oral advocates, its meropes anthropoi, stood forth glori- 
ously in Virginia. 

The doctrines on political subjects, held by the Bap- 
tists o£ Virginia, and set forth in their address to the 
State Convention, may be summarily stated thus: 1. 
That religion should be free absolutely, in its doctrines 
and ordinances, from any restraints whatever, imposed 
by the civil power ; 2. That the State Religious Estab- 
lishment should, as such, be discontinued, and, as an 
organization supported by the government, exist no 
more; 3. That no favor should be shown by the State 
to one religious denomination more than to another; 
4. That all should receive alike the protection of the 
civil government in the full exercise of all their rights. 

These principles they defended in subsequent me- 
morials, with extraordinary ability and conclusiveness. 
In one of them, for example, they said: 

" We hold it as a fundamental and indubitable truth, 



148 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

that the religion of every man must be left to the con- 
viction and conscience of every man, and that it is the 
right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate. 
This right in its nature is an inalienable right. It is 
inalienable, because what is here a right towards man is 
a duty towards the Creator. It is the duty of every 
man to render to the Creator such homage, and such 
only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty 
is precedent, both in order of time and in degree of ob- 
ligation, to the claims of civil society. Before any man 
can be considered as a member of civil society, he must 
be considered as a subject of the Governor of the uni- 
verse. And if a member of civil society, who enters 
into any subordinate association, must always do it with 
a reservation of his duty to the general authority, much 
more must every man who becomes a member of any 
particular civil society, do it with a reservation of his 
allegiance to the Universal Sovereign. We maintain, 
therefore, that in matters of religion no man's right is 
abridged by the institution of civil society, and that re- 
ligion is wholly exempt from its cognizance." 

Plainly, " If religion be exempt," as it must be 
conceded that it is, " from the authority of society at 
large, still less can it be subject to the authority of the 
legislative body. The legislative body is the creature 
and vicegerent of society at large. The jurisdiction 
of that body is both derivative and limited." It is 
derived from the will of the people it is chosen to 
represent, and "it is limited" by the extent of the 
authority which the people have conferred upon it. If 
it is limited "with regard to the co-ordinate depart- 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 149 

ments, much more necessarily is it limited with regard 
to the constituents." The creation and " preservation 
of a free government require not merely that the 
metes and bounds which separate each department of 
power, be invariably maintained, but more especially 
that neither of them be suffered to overleap the great 
barrier which defends the rights of the people. The 
rulers who are guilty of such an encroachment exceed 
the commission from which they derive their au- 
thority, and are tyrants. The people who submit to 
it are governed by laws made neither by themselves, 
nor by any authority derived from them, and are 
slaves." 

" All are to be considered as entiring into society on 
equal conditions; as relinquishing no more, and there- 
fore retaining no less, one than another, of their natu- 
ral rights; above all are they to be considered as 
retaining an equal title to the free exercise of religion 
according to the dictates of conscience. While, there- 
fore, we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to 
profess, and to observe the religion which we believe 
to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal right 
to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evi- 
dence which has convinced us. If this freedom be 
abused, it is an offence against God, not against man. 
To God, therefore, and not to man, must an account 
be rendered." 

An established religion "implies either that the 
civil magistrate is a competent judge of religious 
truths, or that he may employ religion as an engine of 
civil policy. The former is an arrogant pretension, 

13* 



1 50 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 

falsified by facts in all ages, and throughout the 
world ; and the latter is an unhallowed perversion of 
the means of salvation."* 

Such was the address of the General Association of 
1775, to the Convention of the State. It demanded 
full religious freedom, and sustained its demand by 
conclusive arguments, Scriptural, historical, and logi- 
cal; it urged upon the Convention the duty of oppos- 
ing an armed resistance to the usurpations of the Bri- 
tish government, and attempting the achievement of 
the political freedom of the country ; it declared the 
readiness of all its young men to enter the army as 
soldiers of liberty; and asked for its ministers permis- 
sion to go with their flocks as chaplains in the army. 
This was the attitude of the Baptists. 

The other denominations also addressed the Conven- 
tion ; the Presbyterians, the Methodists, and the Episco- 
pal Church. Of the Presbyterian petitions, Dr. Foote, 
the historian of that Church in Virginia, and a distin- 
guished minister of that denomination, observes : 

"They were for an ill-defined liberty of conscience, 
and the disseverance of religion from the civil power. 
That something ought to be done for dissenters was 
evident, but what should actually be done was matter 
of contention." f 

The members of that church were slow in acquiring 
first ideas of religious freedom. Nor was this surpris- 
ing, when we consider their antecedents at Geneva and 
in Scotland. At that period they were a small but in- 

* Semple's History of the Virginia Baptists, pp. 345, et seq. 
f Sketches of Va., p. 323. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 151 

fluential denomination in Virginia. Their settlements 
were commeneed before the middle of the eighteenth 
century. Their churches were composed mainly of a 
class of persons known as "Scotch Irish," and immi- 
grants from Scotland. At first they were located for 
the most part "among the hills on the western side of 
the Blue Ridge." When the revolution commenced, 
however, they had spread themselves through nearly 
all the counties of the Commonwealth. The Hanover 
Presbytery, which had its designation from the county 
of that name, in which resided Mr. Davies, their most 
distinguished preacher, had successively, for two years 
previously, petitioned the Colonial Legislature for 
what Dr. Foote called " An ill-defined liberty of con- 
science." Their addresses had reference principally to 
the predominance of the Episcopal Church, from 
whose rule they desired to be freed. In regard to the 
conflict then commencing with England, they said lit- 
tle. To their minds it was of dubious result. Un- 
happily, they, to say the least, appeared unwilling to 
assume a position from which, should the country fail 
to achieve its liberty, they could not readily and safely 
recede. 

The Methodist Church, which had then but lately 
commenced its career in Virginia, was very strongly 
opposed, as we shall hereafter see more fully, to all 
legal reforms, and joined heartily the Episcopal Church 
in all its struggles to retain its position as the Estab- 
lished Church of the colony, and to defeat the Baptist 
movement for the attainment of religious freedom. 

Such were the positions on this subject of the several 



1 52 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 

religious denominations before the Convention. For 
the bold purpose of establishing religious freedom, 
whether it involved honor or dishonor, deliverance or 
chains, life or death, the Baptists, and the Baptists 
alone, were then held responsible by all others, and 
they held themselves responsible. We have before 
seen, that for these same doctrines and principles they 
had for a thousand years been denounced in the Old 
World by every other church and by every govern- 
ment. They had ever been held as heretics, and the 
enemies of all political governments, and they had 
paid with their lives for their daring presumption. In 
Virginia they were undismayed, and, believing that 
their circumstances were now favorable for success, 
determined to put forth all their strength. Two of 
these circumstances ought here to be mentioned. 

The former of these is thus referred to by Rev. Dr. 
Hawks. He says: "The storm which had so long 
been gathering burst upon America, and the first blood 
was spilled at Lexington. Every Colony was speedily 
on the alert, and a voluntary Convention of the dele- 
gates to the Virginia Legislature, meeting after its ad- 
journment, succeeded the Royal Assembly that was 
held in the l Ancient Dominion/ The Baptists were 
not slow in discovering the advantageous position in 
which the political troubles of the country had placed 
them. Their numerical strength was such as to make 
it important to both parties to secure their influence; 
they knew this, and therefore determined to turn the 
circumstance to their profit as a sect. Persecution had 
taught them not to love the Establishment, and they 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GIXIA. 153 

now saw before them a reasonable prospect of over- 
turning it entirely. In their Association they had 
calmly discussed the matter, and resolved on their 
course; in this course they were consistent to the end. 
Xow [in the Convention] commenced the assault. In- 
spired with a patriotism which accorded with their in- 
terest; or willing to avail themselves of a favorable 
opportunity to present their case in an advantageous 
contrast to a part of the Church; they addressed the 
Convention, and informed that body that their reli- 
gious tenets presented no obstacle to their taking up 
arms and fighting for their country; and they tendered 
the services of their pastors in promoting the enlistment 
of the youth of their religious persuasion. They pre- 
sented also to the Convention a petition, in which they 
made the certainly reasonable request, that they might 
be allowed to worship God in their own way, without 
interruption ; that they might be permitted to maintain 
their own ministers separate from others; that they 
might be married, and buried, and the like, without 
paying the clergy of other denominations." He adds, 
"A complimentary answer was returned to their [the 
Baptists'] address, [by the Convention] and an order 
was made that the sectarian clergy should have the 
privilege of performing divine service in the army, 
equally with the regular chaplains of the Established 
Church." He closes this notice by saying, "This, it 
is believed, was the first step made towards placing the 
clergy of all denominations upon an equal footing in 
Virginia." * 

:;: History of the Prot. Epis. Church in Va., pp. 137, 138. 



154 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

We do not pause to comment on the disrespectful 
language which the writer used towards the Baptists, 
his sneers at their patriotism, his ridicule of their pri- 
vations, nor his charges against them of selfishness, 
malignity, and sectarian management. All this may 
pass unnoticed. It is enough that he admits as true 
all that we have claimed regarding their movements. 
We will simply add the order to which he refers, as it 
stands recorded on the Journal of the Convention. It 
is dated Wednesday, August 16th, 1775, and is as 
follows : 

" Resolved, That it be an instruction to the com- 
manding officers of the regiment or troops to be raised, 
that they permit dissenting clergymen to celebrate di- 
vine worship, and to preach to the soldiers, or exhort 
from time to time, as the various operations of the mili- 
tary service may permit, for the ease of such scrupu- 
lous consciences as may not choose to attend divine ser- 
vice as celebrated by the [Episcopal] chaplain/' 

The other of these favorable circumstances, was 
found in the character and influence of those members 
of the Convention who were enlisted in the cause of the 
Baptists, by the indefatigable exertions of Messrs. 
Walker, Williams, and Roberts, the Commissioners of 
the General Association. They soon became intimately 
associated with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and 
Patrick Henry, all of whom, except the last, entered 
fully into their spirit and designs. In what respects 
Mr. Henry failed to sustain the principles of the Bap- 
tists, will sufficiently appear in a future chapter. The 
co-operation and advocacy of these great men, was a 






EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 155 

very happy event, and led to the most triumphant suc- 
cess. The address of the General Association was read. 
It was heard with the profoundest attention. The effect 
was extraordinary. An impression was made, which 
no counter influences could ever subsequently efface, 
and which, with the blessing of God, became continually 
deeper and broader, until in every sense Virginia was 
free. 

The action of the Convention of Virginia was equally 
gratifying and complimentary to the Baptists of the 
Commonwealth. The General Association urged the 
Convention to oppose an armed resistance to the usur- 
pation of England, and pledged, to support it in that 
opposition, all its men and all its wealth; and the 
Convention instructed its delegates in Congress to de- 
clare the independence of the Colonies, and to pledge 
for its support their lives, their fortunes, and their sa- 
cred honor. It asked for its ministers the privilege of 
serving as chaplains in the army of liberty; and by 
order of the Convention the commanding officers were 
instructed to receive them on the same footing with the 
chaplains of the Established Church. It maintained 
in its address that no State Establishment ought to ex- 
is t; that all religious denominations in the State ought 
to s-tand upon the same footing ; that to all alike should 
be extended its protection, securing to them the peace- 
able enjoyment of their own religious principles and 
modes of worship; and that these grand principles 
ought to be embodied in the organic law of the Com- 
monwealth. The Convention formed a constitution for 
the State. The first Article in the Bill of Eights, 



156 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA, 

adopted June 12th, 1778, asserts, accordingly, that "all 
men are by nature equally free and independent ; " and 
the sixteenth Article of the Constitution maintains that 
"religion, or the duty which we owe to our Creator, 
and the manner of discharging it, can be directed only 
by reason and conviction, not by force or violence, and 
therefore all men are equally entitled to the free exer- 
cise of religion according to the dictates of conscience; 
and it is the mutual duty of all to practice Christian 
forbearance, love, and charity towards each other." 
Consequently, the religion of the citizen cannot be the 
subject of legislation, nor render him amenable to the 
civil magistrate. If he abuse religious freedom, it is 
an offence, not against men, but against God. To God 
only, therefore, can he be justly called to account. 

So great and extraordinary is this victory, achieved 
in legislation by the Baptists of Virginia, that it seems 
almost incredible. Yet there stands the monument 
which affirms it. These grand principles we^e up to 
that time known to be peculiarly Baptist, and de- 
nounced by all others. We need not inquire whether 
they had converted to their political sentiments a ma- 
jority of the members of the Convention before the as- 
sembling of that body, or whether after their meetir g 
they were induced to adopt them. In either case 
result is the same. A summary of Baptist principles 
was embedded in the Constitution of the State, and 
thus placed immovably at the very foundation of the 
government. It was a glorious triumph. Such 
its character as almost certainly to secure success in 
every subsequent conflict. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 157 



CHAPTER XIL 

INFLUENCE OF THE BAPTISTS IN FORMING THE 
STATE GOVERNMENT OF VIRGINIA. 

Petitions to the Virginia Legislature from the General Association* 
From the Hanover Presbytery, and other Presbyteries. Methodist 
petitions. Episcopal claims. Jefferson's advocacy of Baptist prin- 
ciples Marriage law. Assessment law. Law to establish religious 
liberty. Suspension of the salaries before paid by the State to the 
established clergy. The Vestry and Glebe laics. 

" The share which the Baptists took in shoring up 
the fallen liberties of England, and in infusing new 
vigor and liberality into the constitution of that coun- 
try/' says Rev. Dr. W. R. Williams, referring to the 
times of Cromwell, "is not generally acknowledged. 
It is scarcely even known. The dominant party in 
the Church, and in the State, at the Restoration, be- 
came the historians. And when ' The man, and not 
the lion was the painter/ it was easy to foretell with 
what party all the virtues, all the talents, and all the 
triumphs would be found. When our principles shall 
have won their way to a more general acceptance, the 
share of the Baptists in the achievements of that day 
will be disinterred, like many other forgotten truths, 
from the ruins of history. Then it will be found, we 
believe, that while dross, such as has alloyed the purest 
churches, in the best ages, may have existed in our 
denomination, yet the body was composed of pure and 
scriptural Christians, who contended manfully, with 

14 



1 58 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 

some bitter sufferings, for the rights of conscience, and 
the truth as it is in Jesus ; that to them English lib- 
erty owes a debt it can never acknowledge ; and that 
amongst them Christian freedom found its earliest, and 
some of its staunch est, its most consistent, and -its most 
disinterested champions." * These representations of 
the Baptists of England are peculiarly applicable to 
the Baptists of Virginia. The historians of the State 
were not their friends ; some of them were their tradu- 
cers ; and by all of them they have been studiously 
ignored as far as literary decency would permit. It is 
only when we go back to the facts, actions, and records, 
of the times, and investigate for ourselves the original 
sources of knowledge, that we find everywhere promi- 
nently inscribed their patriotic deeds, and their noble 
achievements. They were ever ready to " Render unto 
Caesar the things which are Caesar's ; " but their souls 
were too free and too determined, not to resist Csesar 
when he demanded from them also, " the things that 
are God's." They seized, therefore, this favorable 
opportunity — such an opportunity as had never before 
occurred, and probably would never occur again — to 
fix their political principles in the government of the 
State and of the country. They had succeeded in 
planting their doctrine in the Constitution; by this 
fact they were greatly encouraged ; they determined to 
redouble their exertions ; and never to cease their agi- 
tations, until they had overthrown the State Religious 
Establishment, and procured the enactment of such 
laws as would give all the people full religious liberty. 

* Benedict's History of the Baptists, pp. 322, et seq. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 159 

The session of the General Association of the Bap- 
tists of Virginia for 1776 was characterized by peculiar 
proceedings, some of which have been narrated. At 
that meeting occurred the election and ordination of 
the first Baptist Diocesan Bishop of Virginia. But it 
did not forget its duty to the government and to its 
constituents. Its Commissioners to the State Conven- 
tion, Mr. Walker, Mr. Williams, and Mr. Roberts, re- 
ported, giving a full account of their mission, and the 
extraordinary success with which God had crowned 
their endeavors. They received the grateful thanks 
and earnest congratulations of all their brethren. 

An address to the Legislature soon to convene was 
reported, considered, and adopted. This paper I have 
been unable to find. We are, however, not without 
information as to its contents, contained in the Journals 
of the Legislature, and the current history of the times. 
From these sources we learn that the Baptists followed 
up, with characteristic energy, the measures they had 
previously devised. The Legislature was convened in 
October. "It was addressed," says Dr. Hawks,* "by 
numerous petitions from all parts of the State, entreat- 
ing for all religious sects protection in the full exercise 
of their several modes of worship, and exemption from 
the payment of all taxes for the support of any church 
whatever, further than what might be agreeable to their 
own private choice or voluntary obligation." Promi- 
nent among these petitioners was the Hanover Presby- 
tery, to which we have before referred. This body was 
led by Patrick Henry, who lived in Hanover County, 

* Hist. Prot. Epis. Ch. in Va., p. 139. 



1 60 EAEL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

and though not a communicant in that body, was of 
Presbyterian antecedents, his father being a Scotchman, 
and of that church. Over the minds of both the mi- 
nisters and members of that denomination in Virginia,] 
Mr. Henry exercised, on political subjects, an almost! 
unlimited influence. These Presbyterian petitions are 
characterized, as we have seen, by Dr. Foote, their able 
historian, as indefinite, " ill-defined," and left only the 
impression " that something ought to be done for dis- 
senters;" "but as to what should be done," they were 
not agreed among themselves. The address of the 
Methodist Church is sufficiently characterized by the 
reference to it upon the Journal of the House of Dele- 
gates. It is dated Monday, October 27th, 1776, and 
is as follows : 

"A petition from the people commonly called Me- 
thodists was presented to the house and read ; setting 
forth that the Dissenters are preparing to lay a petition 
before the House for abolishing the present Establish- 
ment of the Church ; and as they may, also, in the opi- 
nion of some, come under the denomination of Dissenters, 
they beg leave to declare, that they are a society in 
communion with the Church of England, and do all in 
their power to strengthen and support said Church; 
and as they conceive very bad consequences will arise 
from the abolishing the Establishment, they therefore 
pray that the Church of England, as it ever hath been, 
may continue to be the Established Church." 

Referring to the petitions of the Baptists and Pres- 
byterians, Dr. Hawks of the Episcopal Church says: 
" Counter memorials on the part of the Church [Epis- 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 161 

copal] and the Methodists solicited the continuance of 
the Establishment." "They claimed this upon the 
principles of justice, of wisdom, and of policy."* They 
insisted "that the efforts made [by the sects] to injure 
what was left of the Establishment might be checked" 
by the legislative authority, f 

The Baptist address was not indefinite, ambiguous, 
nor compromising. Dr. Hawks says: "It entreated 
for all religious sects protection in the full exercise of 
their several modes of worship and exemption from the 
payment of all taxes for the support of any church 
whatever." He adds : " Further than what might be 
agreeable to their own private choice or voluntary obli- 
gation." This last statement was true of the Presbyte- 
rians, but, as is well known, not true of the Baptists. 
If the Presbyterians were unwilling to be taxed by the 
State " for the support of any church whatever further 
than what might be agreeable to their own private choice" 
the Baptists were unwilling to be taxed by the State for 
the support of any church whatever ; even for that of 
"their own private choice." They preferred to support 
it in their own way, and denied that the State had a 
right to interfere in any of their affairs, or even to in- 
quire into such matters. They insisted that any Eeli- 
gious Establishment by the State was in its very nature 
impolitic, unjust, and oppressive, and that none could 
exist compatibly with religious freedom. 

In accordance with these views a bill was brought 
into the Legislature to " Eepeal all laws establishing 

* Hist. Prot. Ep. Ch. in Va., p. 142. 
f Idem, p. 147. 

14* 



162 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

the Episcopal Church/' as the State Church of Vir- 
ginia. The introduction of this bill produced im- 
mense excitement, and its progress was strenuously 
contested at every step. Amendments were proposed 
and adopted, until it assumed quite another form, and 
fell far short of its original object. It did not abolish 
the Established Church. Still it repealed some most 
obnoxious laws, which however had been for several 
years of impracticable execution. In this mutilated 
form the law was adopted. It provided as follows : 

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the 
Commonwealth of Virginia, and it is hereby enacted 
by the authority of the same, that all and every 
Act of Parliament, by whatever title known or dis- 
tinguished, which renders criminal the maintaining 
any opinions in matters of religion [other than Episco- 
pal], forbearing to repair to church, or the exercising 
any mode of worship whatsoever, or which prescribes 
punishment for the same, shall henceforth be of no 
validity or force within this Commonwealth." And 
" That all dissenters of whatever denomination, from 
the said Church, shall from, and after the passing of 
this Act, be totally free and exempt from all levies, 
taxes, and impositions whatever, towards supporting 
and maintaining said Church."* 

Even this inadequate boon was not gained without 
an arduous and protracted struggle. Mr. Jefferson, 
in his works,f refers to the conflict it created, in the 
following terms : 

* Herring's Statutes at Large, vol. 9, p. 164. 
f Vol. 1, pp. 32, 33. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GIN1A. 163 

" The first Republican Legislature, which met in 
1776, was crowded with petitions to abolish this 
spiritual tyranny. (The Established Church.) These 
brought on the severest contest in which I have ever 
been engaged." " The petitions were referred to a 
Committee of the whole House on the State of the 
Country; and after desperate contests in that Com- 
mittee almost daily, from the 11th of October, to the 
5th of December, we prevailed so far only as to repeal 
the laws which rendered criminal the maintenance of 
any religious opinions (other than those of the Episco- 
palians), the forbearance of repairing to (the Episcopal) 
Church, or the exercise of any (other than the Episco- 
pal) mode of worship ; and to suspend only until the 
next session, levies on the members of that Church for 
the salaries of their own incumbents." "Our op- 
ponents carried, in the General Resolutions of Novem- 
ber the 19th, a declaration that Religious Assemblies 
ought to be regulated, and that provision ought to be 
made for continuing the succession of the clergy, and 
superintending their conduct." 

This was the only action of the first Legislature on 
the subject. Some progress was made, but much less 
than was hoped. The Establishment was continued, 
and supported by the State. It was, however, no 
longer a crime, punishable by the civil magistrate, not 
to attend an Episcopal Church, or to decline the use of 
the Episcopal form of worship, and dissenters of all 
classes were not to be taxed to pay the salaries of the 
Episcopal clergy, but their " Religious Assemblies," 
were " to be regulated " by the civil authority. 



164 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 

The session of the General Association of the 
Baptists of Virginia for 1777, was rendered memora- 
ble by a proceeding which clothes that body with im- 
mortal honor. A committee was appointed, charged 
with the duty of examining the laws of the Common- 
wealth, and designating all such as were justly con- 
sidered offensive ; of recommending the method to be 
pursued to obtain their removal from the Statute 
Book; to propose in form such laws, to be laid before 
the Legislature, as should firmly establish and main- 
tain "Religious freedom," in all its extent and bear- 
ings; and to report at the earliest moment practicable. 
The task assigned this committee was indeed im- 
mense; doubtless the necessary materials had been 
previously prepared for it ; the labor was soon accom- 
plished; and in due time it presented an elaborate 
report. In that report, numerous laws were desig- 
nated as offensive, prominent among which was the 
law which required all marriages to be performed by 
Episcopal clergymen, with the ceremonies of the Estab- 
lished Church, and made all otherwise performed 
illegal and void; and all the laws establishing the 
Episcopal Church as the religion of the State, and 
providing for its support from the public purse ; as 
the best method to procure their removal from the 
Statute Book, continued agitations among the people, 
and petitions to the Legislature were recommended; 
and as expressive of such govenment action, as was 
desired, a law was drawn up in form, and reported, 
entitled " An Act for the Establishment of Religious 
Freedom," to be presented to the Legislature, with an 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 165 

earnest petition that it might be adopted as a law of 
the State. 

This report was received, amply discussed, and 
adopted. An address was prepared embodying all the 
suggestions of the report, especially the proposed law 
to establish Religious Liberty ; commissioners were 
appointed, to whose fidelity it was confided ; and they 
were instructed to remain with the Legislature, and 
give their attention to these interests during the ap- 
proaching session. 

The General Assembly met, and as in the previous 
year, "was flooded with petitions." The Baptists, 
with whom were joined the masses of the people, and 
who were seconded on some topics by the Presby- 
terians, were the memorialists on the one side, and on 
the other were the Episcopalians and Methodists. 
Very little progress was made. The Assembly again 
suspended for a year the collection of the taxes levied 
upon the people, for the support of the Established 
Church. This, however, was a small aifair, since the 
clergy of that church lived plentifully, and in fine 
style upon their glebes, and were not wholly de- 
pendent upon the extra salary they had heretofore 
received directly from the Treasury of the State. 

Meantime a new theory of a State Religious Estab- 
lishment was devised, and began, in private circles, to 
be warmly discussed. This theory had its origin with 
the Presbyterians, and was in their subsequent memo- 
rials tenaciously and elaborately advocated. It pro- 
posed, not the abrogation of a State Religious Estab- 
lishment, the measure demanded by the Baptists, but 



166 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

that the State, instead of selecting one denomination, as 
the Episcopal, and establishing that as the religion of 
the State, and giving to that alone its support, should 
establish all the denominations, Presbyterians, Method- 
ists, and Baptists, as well as the Episcopalians, and 
make them all equally and alike the religion of the State, 
and to be supported by the State. How this could be 
done we shall hereafter see fully explained in some of 
the Presbyterian memorials. Of this plan of recon- 
ciling and harmonizing all parties, Patrick Henry was 
the ablest and most eloquent advocate. It had the 
merit of British precedent, since Episcopalianism in 
England, and Presbyterianism in Scotland, were alike 
the Established Religion of the Empire. Baptists, and 
Methodists, and any other strong denomination that 
might afterwards arise, could easily be added here, with- 
out any change in the principle. The plan was ingeni- 
ous, but it had two great impediments to overcome. 
The one was the determined tenacity with which the 
Episcopalians and Methodists clung to the existing Es- 
tablishment, and the other was the undying hostility of 
the Baptists to any State Religious Establishment what- 
ever. The proposal to include them in such an Estab- 
lishment, they scouted with indignation. They de- 
manded the total and perpetual separation of Church 
and State. 

The General Association, at its session in 1778, re- 
newed its vigilance regarding all the interests which 
the denomination had committed to its charge. A com- 
mittee of seven members was appointed to consider 
" Civil Grievances." That committee reported as such 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 167 

the State Religious Establishment; taxes for its sup- 
port; the glebes; the marriage law and other laws; 
and denounced especially the new Presbyterian device, 
which proposed the establishment and support of all de- 
nominations as the religion of the State. An address 
to the Legislature, embodying these topics, and praying 
for the passage of a law "establishing Religious Free- 
dom," was adopted, and placed in the hands of Jere- 
miah Walker, Elijah Craig, and John Williams, who 
were appointed commissioners, with the usual instruc- 
tions. The country was now in the midst of the war 
of the Revolution; the Legislature was wholly en- 
grossed with the measures necessary for its defence ; and 
for the mitigation of these civil grievances, nothing 
was accomplished. 

When the General Association assembled in 1779, 
Mr. Walker, after having reported the proceedings of 
the commissioners at the capital, made to the body a 
most important communication. Two years before, a 
committee had reported to that body the project of a 
law for "the Establishment of Religious Liberty. " 
This form had been embodied in its memorial, and 
submitted to the Legislature. The General Assembly, 
as we have seen, was then in no temper to act favorably 
on this, or on any similar subject. The form submitted 
had, however, attracted the attention of several mem- 
bers of the Legislature, and especially of Mr. Jeffer- 
son and Mr. Madison, and had led to various private 
interviews between them and the commissioners on the 
subject. Mr. Jefferson had kindly undertaken to pre- 
pare the law ; make it accord with their wishes ; render 



168 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

it as perfect as possible ; and at the earliest practicable 
day secure its adoption by the General Assembly as a 
law of the State. This form, as thus prepared, was now 
laid before the General Association by Mr. Walker, 
for its consideration, advice, and approval. The paper 
was read carefully, and prayerfully considered, and the 
following proceedings unanimously adopted : 

" Resolved, That the [proposed] bill establishing Reli- 
gious Liberty, in our opinion puts that subject upon its 
proper basis; preserves the just limits of the powers of 
the State with regard to religion ; and properly guards 
against partiality towards any religious denomination; 
and that, therefore, we heartily approve the same, and 
desire it to pass into a law. 

"Ordered that this our approbation of said bill be 
transmitted to the public printers, that it may be pub- 
lished in the Gazette." * 

The memorial for this year transmitted by its com- 
missioners to the Legislature the bill referred to, with 
the statement of its unanimous approval by the Gene- 
ral Association, and its prayer that it might be passed 
into a law ; it petitioned for the abolition of the State 
Religious Establishment; it protested against the new 
scheme, which proposed the taxing of the people for the 
support of the ministers of all denominations; and re- 
monstrated against any further payment of the salaries 
of the Episcopal clergy. Only one of these topics — 
the last named — engaged the attention of the Assem- 
bly. That body adopted an act entitled "An Act to 
repeal so much of the Act for the support of the clergy, 

* Semple's History of the Virginia Baptists, passim. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 1 69 

and for the regular collecting and paying of the parish 
levies, as relates to the payment of the salaries hereto- 
fore given to the clergy of the Church of England." 
The principal provision of this law is as follows :— 

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That so 
much of the act entitled An Act for the support of the 
clergy, and for the regular collecting and paying of 
the parish levies ; and of all and every other act pro- 
viding salaries for the ministers, and authorizing the 
vestries to levy the same; shall be, and the same are 
hereby repealed." * 

This was a bold and effectual blow. It refused any 
longer to pay the ministers of the State Church, but it 
still retained it as the State Church ! 

This law, which Dr. Hawks regards as that which 
effectually destroyed the Establishment in Virginia, he 
attributes mainly to the influence of the Baptists. That 
gentleman, in a strain of lamentation, thus expresses 
himself: — 

" In each successive meeting of the Legislature from 
1776 to 1779, this questio vexata was brought up for 
discussion, and the friends of voluntary contribution, 
apprehensive probably of a final vote against them, 
labored, and not without success, to suspend the de- 
cision from time to time, and leave the matter to be 
debated the succeeding year. In 1779, all things be- 
ing now ready for a final vote, the question was set- 
tled," "and the Church was finally put down." "The 
Baptists," he adds, "were the principal promoters of 
this work, and in truth aided more than any other de- 

* Herring's Statutes at Large, vol. 10, p. 197. 
15 



1 70 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 

nomination in its accomplishment." "In the Associa- 
tions of that sect, held from year to year, a prominent 
subject of discussion always was as to the best mode of 
carrying on the war against the former Establishment. 
After their final success in this matter [the overthrow 
of the Establishment] their next efforts were to procure 
the sale of the Church lands." * 

"The Church lands/' of which the author here 
speaks, were the Virginia "glebes." "The Vestry 
laws," of which we shall hereafter have frequent oc- 
casion to speak more fully, provided that " Twelve of 
the most able men of each parish be, by the major part 
of said parish, chosen to be a vestry; out of which 
number the minister and vestry to make choice of two 
church wardens yearly ; as also in the case of the death 
of any vestryman, or his departure from the parish, 
that the said minister and vestry make choice of an- 
other in his room." To qualify these gentlemen for 
office, they were required to take "The Oath of Su- 
premacy," and "Subscribe the Doctrines and Discipline 
of the Church of England." Among the most im- 
portant duties the vestrymen were called upon to per- 
form, were to lay the parish levy, and collect and pay 
over the amount to the minister." f 

Properly to understand the value of the " Virginia 
glebes," and the manner in which they were created 
and directed, we will refer more at large to the leading 
enactments on that subject. 

* History of the Protestant Episcopal Church, in Virginia, pp. 152, 
153. 
| Laws of Va., Eevised folio edition, 1769, pp. 2, 250. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA, 171 

The "law of March 6th, 1655-6," provides "That 
parishes be laid out in every county ; " and that " by a 
tax upon the people/' funds be collected "to purchase 
[in each parish] a glebe and stock for the minister that 
shall be settled there." 

It was enacted, " March 9th, 1657-8, That further 
taxes be laid upon the people, for the purchasing of 
glebes and stock for the ministers." 

In 1748 the following law on the subject was 
enacted : 

"That in every parish in this Dominion, where a 
good and comfortable glebe is not already purchased 
and appropriated, a good and convenient tract of land, 
to contain two hundred acres at least, shall be pur- 
chased by the vestry, and assigned and set apart for a 
glebe for the use of the minister of such parish and his 
successors in all times hereafter; and where a mansion 
and other convenient outhouses are not already erected 
for the habitation of the minister, it is hereby declared 
and enacted, that the vestry of every such parish shall 
have power, and they are hereby authorized and re- 
quired, to cause to be erected, and built on such glebe, 
one convenient mansion house ; kitchen ; barn ; stable ; 
dairy ; meat-house ; corn-house ; garden, well paled, 
or inclosed with a mud fence ; with such other con- 
veniences as they shall think fit; and to levy the 
charge of the glebe lands and buildings on the tithe- 
able persons in their respective parishes." * 

Each parish had one of these extensive farms for the 
use of the Episcopal minister. They were usually 
* Laws of Virginia, Revised, Fol. 17G9, pp. 250, 251, 252. 



172 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

among the best farms, and had upon them the hand- 
somest and best houses and other improvements, in the 
country. Some of these old residences yet remain, and 
contrast favorably with the finest mansions of modern 
erection. All this property was purchased with the 
money of the people, of all the people without distinc- 
tion of sect ; and, therefore, of right belonged to the 
people. The Baptists maintained that the State 
Establishment should be abolished, and these estates 
should be returned to the people, and sold to assist .in 
paying the public debt, the taxes for which purpose 
were heavy and would thereby be materially lightened. 
Such were the glebe laws, and the glebes of Virginia. 

The General Association of the Baptists of Virginia, 
assembled in Annual Session in 1780, and passed har- 
moniously through the usual routine of business. The 
records of that session that remain, are exceedingly 
meager, but from contemporaneous history we ascer- 
tain that it acted with its accustomed singleness of pur- 
pose, vigor, and success. In the Legislature of that 
year, "The Marriage Law," against which the Bap- 
tists and Presbyterians had annually, for several years, 
earnestly protested in their addresses to the Legisla- 
ture, was repealed, and another substituted in its place, 
entitled, "An Act declaring what shall be a lawful 
Marriage." The chief provisions of this law were as 
follows : 

"That it shall be lawful for any minister of any 
society or congregation of Christians, to join together 
as man and wife, those who may apply to him, agreea- 
ble to the rules and usages of the respective societies to 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 173 

which the parties to be married, respectively belong."* 
This law, however, which had been so perseveringly 
sought, was clogged with various " provisoes," which 
were of no practical utility, which were exceedingly 
obnoxious, and which materially abated the satisfaction 
with which the boon was received by the people. 
These, however, by the Legislature of 1784, were all 
removed, and the ministers of all denominations were 
placed, in this respect, upon a perfectly equal footing. 

At the place designated for the meeting of the Gen- 
eral Association in 1781, the messengers of sixteen 
churches assembled. The British troops under Lord 
Cornwallis then passing through the country, were in 
the immediate neighborhood. The members present 
hastily organized, appointed the time and place for the 
next Annual Meeting, and without transacting any 
further business adjourned. 

The meetings of the General Association for 1782 
and for 1783 had a full attendance. The remaining 
laws of the State, regarded by them as unequal and op- 
pressive, received their elaborate attention. Prominent 
among these were "The Vestry and Glebe Laws." 
The project before mentioned of incorporating, or estab- 
lishing as the religion of the State, all the prevailing 
denominations, and assessing taxes upon the people to 
support the ministers of all alike, was now warmly ad- 
vocated by Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and Methodists, 
and becoming quite popular. To this scheme, the Bap- 
tists still gave the most determined opposition, and sent 
up against it the most vigorous remonstrances. They 

* Hening's Statutes at Large, vol. 10, p. 361. 
15* 



1 74 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 

also continued to petition for the adoption of the pro- 
posed "Act to Establish Religious Freedom." To 
bear these addresses to the Legislature and to superin- 
tend them before that body, Jeremiah Walker was ap- 
pointed by the former meeting; and by the latter, 
Reuben Ford and John Waller. The extraordinary 
state of the country, however, prevented, on the part of 
the government, any important action upon these sub- 
jects. 

The session of 1783 was the last regular meeting of 
the General Association of the Baptists of Virginia. 
Many considerations induced the opinion that another 
form of organization would be as efficient and, to many 
minds, much less objectionable. A meeting was there- 
fore called, to be held in October of that year, for con- 
sultation and final action on that subject. That meet- 
ing was very largely attended; and after much and 
anxious deliberation, the following resolution was una- 
nimously adopted : 

"Resolved, That our General or Annual Association 
cease, and that a General Committee be instituted, 
composed of not more than four delegates from each 
District Association, to meet annually, to consider mat- 
ters that may be for the good of the whole society."* 

The General Association was then dissolved. It ex- 
isted no more. The General Committee was organized, 
and took the place of a body whose character and labors 
have made an impression upon the whole of North 
America which time can never efface. 

* Semple's History of the Vh-ginia Baptists, p. 68. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 175 



CHAPTER XIII. 

CHANGE IN THE POLITICAL REORGANIZATION OF 
THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

Political and religious condition of the country during the period of 
the General Association. Cause of the anomalous composition of the 
Association. Purposes to which it was limited. In what respects it 
exceeded its limits. The result of union among the churches was the 
adoption, and also the abandonment, of Episcopacy. The extent of 
its achievements in its legitimate sphere. Character of the General 
Committee. Its declaration of principles. 

The General Association of the Baptists of Vir- 
ginia was, in many respects, an extraordinary body. It 
was characterized, during its whole period, by an 
amount of talent, firmness, and energy seldom found in 
any body, religious or civil. In our day, we see in the 
political walks of our country no such men as Wash- 
ington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Franklin, and Madison; 
and in the religious walks of Virginia, none such ap- 
pear as Harris, Waller, Williams, Walker, and Craig. 
That noble body deserves a larger space in Baptist his- 
tory than it has yet received. Its existence was brief 
but brilliant, and although it passed in several instances 
beyond its prescribed limits, and was betrayed into 
some proceedings which must ever be deprecated, yet 
its achievements within its proper sphere were nume- 
rous, and of the most exalted character. Its motives 
were always pure ; and as to its aberrations, much must 
be forgiven in consideration of the religious and politi- 



1 76 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

cal agitations, turmoils, and conflicts of the times. Re- 
ligion and politics were both in chaos, and mingled to- 
gether in the most perplexing confusion. In reducing 
both to order, and placing each in its true position, it 
is wonderful that its mistakes were so few, its errors so 
readily abandoned, and its success so large and Jbene- 
ficial. 

The General Association, of which we now write, 
was an institution wholly different from that which 
now prevails among the Baptists of Virginia. This 
was originated, as we have seen in a former chapter, 
somewhat at large, for purely political purposes. It 
was required to direct its attention to three grand 
points : first, to give the sympathy and assistance of the 
whole denomination to all those who were persecuted 
and oppressed by the State Church; secondly, to resist 
and overcome that oppression, by destroying, if possi- 
ble, all the subsisting connections between the Church 
and the State; and, thirdly, to obtain in a legal and 
permanent form, " full and complete religious freedom." 
The work assigned it was surely sufficiently Herculean 
to employ all its powers, without the addition of any 
other. The present General Association of the Baptists 
of Virginia stands upon a wholly different basis. It 
is confined to objects purely religious. Its departments 
are state missions, foreign missions, domestic missions, 
the education of ministers, the distribution of the Bible, 
the creation and fostering of Sunday-schools, and the 
procurement and diffusion among the people of ap- 
proved religious books. In one respect they were the 
same. The former was, and so is the latter, strictly 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 177 

prohibited from any interference whatever in the doc- 
trine, discipline, government, or control of the churches. 
The former committed in this respect a flagrant viola- 
tion of its trust, and thereby forfeited its existence. 
Should the latter ever act in a similar manner, it is 
hoped that it will meet, promptly and surely, a like end. 
The latter Association did not immediately succeed the 
former. A period of forty years elapsed between the 
dissolution of the one and the organization of the other. 
These explanations are thought desirable, since at some 
future time, both being of the same name, these two 
may possibly be mistaken for the same organization. 

In some respects, the composition of the General As- 
sociation was anomalous in its character. It was made 
up, partly of messengers from District Associations, and 
partly of messengers from churches. The Ketocton 
Association, as we have before seen, occupied origi- 
nally all that portion of Virginia north of James 
River. This Association took the initiative in favor 
of a reunion of all classes of Baptists in Virginia and 
the Carolinas. Active measures were adopted in 1769, 
and a letter and messengers were sent to the Sandy 
Creek Association, which occupied that portion of Vir- 
ginia west of Petersburg, and south of James River, 
together with the central and western portions of 
North and South Carolina. This measure was post- 
poned, as we have seen, by the separation, the next 
year, of the Sandy Creek into three or four parts, with 
the view of organizing so many different District Asso- 
ciations. The churches of that body in Virginia were 
detached to form an Association of their own. In 



178 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

1771, the General Association was organized within 
that territory, and all these churches, although pre- 
viously formed into the Kapid Ann, were received as 
constituents to that body, and with it they continued 
to act until 1783, when it was dissolved. Many other 
churches on the north, as well as the south side of the 
James, were received, so that in a few years it was 
composed mostly of direct representatives from 
churches. Its numbers were immense, and the distan- 
ces they were required to travel to attend the Annual 
Meetings, were long and tiresome. This is mentioned 
by Dr. Semple, as one of the reasons for the dissolution 
of the General Association. He says : — 

" They would probably long before this date have 
divided into districts, had they not been holden to- 
gether by apprehensions of oppression from civil gov- 
ernment. They could not make head against their 
powerful and numerous opponents, with any hope of 
success, unless they were united among themselves. 
In order to be all of one mind, it was necessary that 
they all should assemble around one Council Board. 
For these reasons, the General Association was kept up 
as long as it was. Finding it, however, wearisome to 
collect so many from such distant parts," " they deter- 
mined to hold one more General Association," "to 
form some plan to keep up a Standing Sentinel for 
political purposes," "and then to divide into districts." 
This meeting was held, and the body " divided into 
four districts; Upper, and Lower Districts, on each 
side of James River." * 
* History of the Virginia Baptists, pp. 67, 68. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 179 

The General Association assumed the place of the 
Ketocton in its movement to secure a reunion of all 
classes of Baptists in Virginia and the other southern 
provinces ; and excellent as were its motives, and happy 
as were, in some respects, the results, it was, neverthe- 
less, a departure from the limits to which it was con- 
fined by the articles of its organization, and to which it 
was pledged strictly to adhere. Precisely at this point 
is the greatest danger to be apprehended from all such 
combinations. The excellence of the object is a strong 
temptation to exceed the limits of its authority, in order 
to secure its attainment. Most men feel great reluc- 
tance to resist a measure of this kind, since their mo- 
tives may be misunderstood, and they may bring upon 
themselves a deprecated odium. One departure of this 
kind becomes a precedent for another, and there is no 
longer any limit to the license assumed. The excel- 
lence of one object may be admitted by all; another 
object may be, to many minds, of very doubtful cha- 
racter, yet if a majority can be persuaded to believe it 
good, this also may be sought; thus all constitutions 
and laws become ropes of sand ; and an organized body, 
religious or civil, may do anything it may choose at the 
time to consider good and desirable. To go beyond 
legitimate authority is always evil, in the cases alike of 
individuals and of organized bodies, no matter for what 
object; and the old Scripture principle is infinitely 
wise, which forbids us to " do evil that good may 
come." 

The object so happily secured by the General Asso- 
ciation could, it is believed, have been gained just as 



180 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

effectually by other means, in the then circumstances 
of the country. Regular and Separate Churches were 
both alike members of that body, and were associated 
on equal terms. Had the District Associations followed 
the same course, and had no difference been made in 
the church as between the two classes of ministers, or 
in their communions between the two classes of mem- 
bers, since they suffered alike from the hands of their 
persecutors, and sought together the same religious free- 
dom, differing on no very essential doctrines, they must 
soon have melted into one mass. They could not, lov- 
ing each other as they did, have long been kept asunder. 
From the reunion of these two classes of Baptists, 
arose another result, which led the General Association 
into a much more flagrant violation of the authority 
confided to it, than that which was committed in the 
other case. Qne of these parties, as we have before 
seen, was of Episcopal antecedents, and naturally de- 
sired to see its opinions adopted and acted upon by the 
whole body. The reunion was consummated in 1775. 
Agitations on the subject of the Episcopacy immedi- 
ately became intense. Sermons were preached every- 
where, and pamphlets on both sides of the subject were 
printed and distributed. In 1776, the General Asso- 
ciation, assuming to act for the whole denomination, 
adopted Episcopacy, and elected and ordained three 
bishops, appointing their dioceses, and sending them 
forth into the field! The Association was solemnly 
pledged never in any respect to interfere with the gov- 
ernment of the churches. Yet by this act, or rather by 
this series of actions, it changed the whole system of 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 181 

Ecclesiastical Polity ! It did this not only without au- 
thority, but against the strictest prohibition, and with- 
out even consulting the churches as such. Happily the 
churches did not readily surrender their liberties, which 
thus by a single blow were swept away from them; 
when time was given them to reflect, they did not cor- 
dially welcome these apostles, or bishops; the apostles 
themselves did not press their claims ; and the whole 
scheme, for want of vitality, became nugatory, and was 
abandoned, informally, but effectually and finally. 
Thus narrowly did the denomination escape from de- 
struction. Nothing saved the Baptists at that time 
but the peculiar interposition of Almighty God. 

From that hour the General Association was doomed. 
The special exigencies of the times continued it in be- 
ing seven years longer; and in its proper sphere, no- 
bly, firmly, successfully, did it acquit itself. The full 
achievement of "religious liberty" was reserved for its 
successor, but its victories were numerous and of the 
greatest importance. In 1775 the Baptists, through 
its agency, succeeded in planting their principles on the 
subject of religious freedom, in the State Constitution 
of Virginia, adopted by the Convention. The next 
year, 1776, in alliance with the Presbyterians before 
the Legislature, they succeeded in obtaining the repeal 
of all the laws making their absence from the regular 
services of the Episcopal Church criminal, and also the 
laws requiring them to pay their proportion for the 
support of the ministers of the Episcopal Church. 
With the General Association, at its sessions in 1777, 

originated the law "For the Establishment of Reli- 
16 



182 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

gious Freedom," adopted several years afterwards by 
the Legislature. Aided by the Presbyterians, they ob- 
tained, in 1779, the repeal of all the laws of the State 
requiring the payment of taxes for the support of the 
Established Church; and in 1780 the repeal of the 
Marriage Law, and the authority for dissenting minis- 
ters "to celebrate the rites of matrimony." The de- 
tails through which they passed in the accomplishment 
of these results have already been presented. The 
work for which it was organized was but half done; 
but its aberrations had been too serious to admit of 
longer endurance; "a Standing Sentinel on Political 
Subjects" was devised, and after an active being of 
twelve years, the General Association of the Baptists 
of Virginia was dissolved. 

The General Committee was organized in 1784, and 
continued to be the centre of denominational action on 
political subjects, for fifteen years, when having fre- 
quently violated its Constitution in a manner similar 
to the General Association, it forfeited the confidence 
of its constituents, and in 1799 was dissolved. Like 
its predecessor, it assumed to act, and did act, in 
matters of doctrine, and ecclesiastical discipline, for all 
the churches. This action had regard mainly to the 
transactions relative to the re-union already narrated 
in a previous chapter. The object to which the Gen- 
eral Committee was confined, as well as the form of its 
organization may be stated as follows : 

"1. The General Committee shall be composed of 
delegates, sent from all the District Associations, that 
desire to correspond with each other. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 183 

2. No Association shall be represented in the Gen- 
eral Committee by more than four delegates. 

3. The Committee thus composed, shall consider all 
the political grievances of the whole Baptist Society of 
Virginia, and all references from the District Associa- 
tions respecting matters which concern the Baptist 
Society at large. 

4. No petition, memorial, or remonstrance shall be 
presented to the General Assembly, from any Associa- 
tion in connection with the General Committee. All 
such shall originate with the General Committee."* 

Being placed in charge of all those interests pre- 
viously confided to the General Association, like that 
body, before entering upon the discharge of its duties, 
it issued its " Declaration of Principles " with regard 
to civil government. That Declaration cannot here 
be presented in full. Its most prominent articles are 
as follows: 

"It is believed to be repugnant to the spirit of the 
gospel for the Legislature to proceed (make laws) in 
regard to religion ; that no human laws ought to be 
established for this purpose (its regulation, and pe- 
cuniary support) but that, in respect to matters of 
religion, every person ought to be left entirely free ; 
that the Holy Author of our religion needs no such 
compulsory measures for the promotion of his cause ; 
that the gospel wants not the feeble arm of man for its 
support; that it has made, and will through divine 
power again make its way, against all opposition ; and 
that should the Legislature assume the right of taxirg 
* Benedict's History, &c., vol. 2, p. 59. 



184 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

the people for the support of the gospel, it will be 
destructive to religious liberty."* 

Henceforward the medium through which the Early 
Baptists of Virginia acted, was different from the 
former, but its pledges, its objects, its duties, and the 
men who directed its movements were the same. 
* Semple's History of the Virginia Baptists, p. 71. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 185 



CHAPTER XIV. 

COMPARATIVE POSITION OF THE EARLY BAPTISTS 
OF VIRGINIA. 

Proceedings of the General Committee. Survey of the field. Episco- 
palians and Methodists against religious freedom. ITiddle ground 
of Presbyterians. Baptist hostility to any connection of religion ivith 
the State Government. 

The first Annual Meeting of the General Committee 
of the Baptists of Virginia was held, commencing 
October the 9th, 1784. The state of the country, and 
what was yet demanded to secure full religious freedom, 
received its elaborate consideration. The Vestry and 
Glebe laws; the proposed law for "A General Assess- 
ment " of all the people, to support the ministers of all 
denominations; and the proposed law for "the Incor- 
poration of all Religious Societies," that is, to place 
them all upon the same footing in relation to the State 
with the Episcopalians, and make each alike the reli- 
gion of the State, as Presbyterianism in Scotland and 
Episcopacy in England are alike the religion of the 
British Empire, were fully discussed. Memorials and 
petitions were prepared and adopted, protesting against 
them all, and Rev. Reuben ^ord was appointed to lay 
them before the Legislature, and to superintend in that 
body all the interests of the Baptists. The proceedings 
of the Legislature, at its session for that year, will best 
be seen by the report of Mr. Ford to the next meeting 

16* 



186 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

of the General Committee, which commenced its session 
August 13th, 1785. Dr. Semple says: 

" Mr. Ford reported that, according to the directions 
given him, he presented their memorials and petitions 
to the Honorable the General Assembly; that certain 
amendments were made to the marriage law, which 
rendered it satisfactory ; and that the expected bill for 
a General Assessment had been introduced, and would 
have passed into a law, but that when at that stage in 
which it was called an engrossed bill, their [the Bap- 
tists'] friends had succeeded in a motion, that the peo- 
ple might be more fully consulted, to refer it to the 
next Assembly." 

Great excitement now prevailed among the people 
generally, and the Baptists especially. Four measures 
of the utmost importance were pending; the Assess- 
ment bill ; the bill to Incorporate the Several Denomi- 
nations ; the bill for the Declaration of Religious Free- 
dom; and the bill for the Repeal of the Vestry and 
Glebe laws. A great battle was to be fought on these 
subjects, which was to decide, perhaps for centuries to 
come, the relations to religion which would be sus- 
tained by the government of Virginia. It is, there- 
fore, proper that we should here pause, carefully survey 
the field, and ascertain the positions, forces, and objects 
of the various parties who are to mingle in the conflict. 

The Episcopalians and Methodists, always allies, as 
we have seen, sent up their petitions to the Legislature 
in favor of the Assessment bill ; in favor of the bill to 
Incorporate the Several Denominations; against the 
bill to establish Religious Freedom; and against the 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 1 87 

bill for the Eepeal of the Vestry and Glebe laws. 
These petitions were elaborately drawn, and entered 
largely into argument on these subjects. 

The Presbyterians occupied a middle ground. In 
their memorial, they objected to the pending bill for the 
Incorporation of the Several Religious Denominations, 
or Churches, on the ground that the ministers alone, 
as the bill then stood, were incorporated; but declared 
themselves in favor of the bill if it were so amended as 
to include also in the incorporation the people of their 
churches; and they advocated assessment, provided it 
were conducted according to a plan which they them- 
selves proposed. On the other subjects, they said no- 
thing. They spoke as follows on the corporation bill : 

" We have understood that a comprehensive incorpo- 
rating act has been, and is at present, in agitation, 
whereby ministers of the gospel, as such, of certain de- 
scriptions, shall have legal advantages, which are not 
proposed to be extended to the people at large of every 
denomination. A proposition has been made by some 
gentlemen in the House of Delegates, we are told, to 
extend the grace to us among others, in our professional 
capacity. If this be so, we are bound to acknowledge 
with gratitude our obligations to such gentlemen, for 
their inclination to favor us with the sanction of public 
authority in the discharge of our duty. But as the 
scheme of incorporating clergymen, independent of the 
religious communities to which they belong, is incon- 
sistent with our ideas of propriety, we request the 
liberty of declining any such solitary honor, should it 
be again proposed. To form clergymen into a distinct 



188 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA, 

order in the community, and especially where it would 
be possible for them to have the directiou of a consider- 
able public estate by such incorporation, has a tendency 
to render them independent at length of the churches 
whose ministers they are; and this has been too often 
found by experience to produce ignorance, immorality, 
and neglect of the duties of their station." 

After stating various considerations which render re- 
ligion necessary to the civil order and well-being of 
society, and the stability and success of political go- 
vernment, they proceed to say : 

"It is upon this principle alone, in our opinion, that 
a legislative body has a right to interfere in religion at 
all, and of consequence we suppose this interference 
ought only to extend to the preserving of the public 
worship of the Deity, and the supporting of institu- 
tions for inculcating the great fundamental principles 
of religion, without which society could not easily 
exist." 

The memorial then discusses the subject of assess- 
ment, and speaks as follows : 

"Should it be thought necessary at present for the 
Assembly to exert this right of supporting religion in 
general, by an assessment on all the people, we would 
wish it to be done on the most liberal plan." " We 
therefore earnestly pray that nothing may be done in 
the case, inconsistent with the proper objects of human 
legislation, or the Declaration of Rights as published 
at the Revolution. We hope that the assessment will 
not be proposed under the idea of supporting religion 
as a spiritual system, relating to the care of the soul, 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 189 

and preparing it for its future destiny. We hope that 
no attempt will be made [by the Legislature] to point 
out Articles of Faith, that are not essential, to the pre- 
servation of society, or to settle Modes of Worship; 
or to interfere in the internal government of Religious 
Communities; or to render the ministers independent 
of the will of the people whom they serve." 

The Presbyterians then proceed to present to the 
Legislature their own plan of assessment, as follows : — 

" 1st. Religion as a spiritual system is not to be con- 
sidered as an object of human legislation, but may in a 
civil view as preserving the existence and promoting 
the happiness of society. 

2d. That public worship and public periodical in- 
struction to the people be maintained in this view, by a 
general assessment for this purpose. 

3d. That every man, as a good citizen, be obliged to 
declare himself attached to some religious community, 
publicly known to profess the belief of one God, his 
righteous providence, our accountability to him, and a 
future state of rewards and punishments. 

4th. That every citizen should have liberty annu- 
ally to direct his assessed proportion to such commu- 
nity as he chooses. 

5th. That twelve titheables or more, to the amount 
of a hundred and fifty families, as nearly as local cir- 
cumstances will permit, shall be incorporated, and ex- 
clusively direct the application of the money contribu- 
ted for their support." * 

* Memorial of Hanover Presbytery, 1784, in Foote's Sketches of 
Virginia, pp. 336-338. 



190 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 

A slight analysis of these papers will show that 
while the Presbyterians objected to the incorporation of 
their ministers apart from their churches, and denied 
the right of the State either to prescribe to them Arti- 
cles of Faith, or to "meddle with their church govern- 
ment," they maintained authority to incorporate 
churches, and support religion in general by preserving 
the public worship of the Deity, and sustaining the 
institutions for inculcating the great fundamental prin- 
ciples of religion ; that public worship and public pe- 
riodical instruction, provided it were orthodox, should 
be maintained by the State by a tax upon all the peo- 
ple, levied and collected by the Legislature; and that 
each man paying taxes should be obliged to declare 
himself attached to some community professing ortho- 
dox religion, and to such community should have lib- 
erty annually to direct his assessed proportion of taxes 
for its support. This is the exact position of the Pres- 
byterians of that day on the proper relations between 
Church and State and the nature of religious liberty. 

The Baptists adhered unwaveringly to their original 
and time-honored principles embodied in their address 
to the Convention in 1775. Their memorial had been 
carefully and elaborately prepared by Mr. Madison, 
one of the ablest logicians, doubtless, of that or of any 
other age. It maintained the inherent and inalienable 
right of all men to free and full liberty of conscience 
and worship; the injustice and injury of any interfer- 
ence with religion by the government; that such inter- 
ference was unnecessary for the safety and efficiency of 
civil government, injurious to public morals, and de- 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA 191 

structive of true religion; and that Virginia owed it 
to herself, to truth, to justice, and to mankind, to grant 
the prayer of the petitioners. This memorial was 
signed, not by Baptists only, but also by multitudes of 
the people of all classes. This, like the memorial of 
the Presbyterians, is too voluminous to be inserted in 
full. We have before copied an extract from it for an- 
other purpose ; and w T ill now present such other ex- 
tracts as will place the whole subject in a clear and un- 
mistakable light; premising that it takes into view 
not only the particular bill mentioned, but all the 
other bills then pending, or in prospect before the Le- 
gislature, and especially the bill "Establishing Reli- 
gious Liberty." 

"We the subscribers, citizens of the said Common- 
wealth, having taken into serious consideration a bill 
printed by order of the last session of the General As- 
sembly, entitled A Bill Establishing a Provision for 
Teachers of the Christian Religion, and conceiving that 
the same, if finally armed with the sanction of the law, 
will be a dangerous abuse of power, are bound as 
faithful citizens of a free State, to remonstrate against it, 
and to declare the reasons by which we are determined." 

After sustaining by argument the propositions, that 
religious freedom is originally the right of every man; 
that this right is not abridged by entering into society ; 
that it cannot be justly invaded by the Legislature; 
that religion is necessarily directed by conviction and 
conscience, and cannot, therefore, be subject to the au- 
thority of rulers ; that religious freedom is consequently 
an inalienable right; and that any abuse of it is an of- 



192 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 

fence not against nien, but against God, to whom alone, 
and not to men, they are accountable ; they proceed to 
say:— 

" We remonstrate against the said bill, because it is 
proper to take alarm at the first experiment upon our 
liberties. 

"We hold this prudent jealousy to be one of the no- 
blest characteristics of the late Revolution. The free- 
men of America did not wait until usurped power had 
strengthened itself by exercise, and entangled the ques- 
tion in precedents. They saw all the consequences in 
the principle, and they avoided the consequences by de- 
nying the principle. TTe revere this lesson too much 
soon to forget it. Who does not see that the same au- 
thority which can establish Christianity in exclusion of 
all other religions, may establish with the same ease 
any particular sect of Christians in exclusion of all 
other sects? That the same authority which can force 
a citizen to contribute three pence only of his property 
for the support of any one establishment, may force 
him to conform to any other establishment in all cases 
whatsoever? 

" Because the bill violates that equality which ought 
to be the basis of every law, and which is the more in- 
dispensable in proportion as the validity or expediency 
of any law is more likely to be impeached. 

"As the bill violates equality by subjecting some to 
peculiar burdens, so it violates the same principle by 
granting to others peculiar exemptions. 

"Because the establishment proposed by the bill is 
not requisite for the support of the Christian religion." 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 193 

We do not hesitate "to say that it is a contradiction 
to the Christian religion itself; for every page of it dis- 
avows a dependence upon the powers of this world. It 
is a contradiction of facts ; for it is known that this re- 
ligion both existed and flourished, not only without 
the support of human laws, but in spite of every oppo- 
sition from them ; and not only during the period of 
miraculous aid, but long after it had been left to its 
own evidence and the ordinary care of Providence. 
Nay, it is a contradiction in terms ; for a religion not 
invented by human policy, must have pre-existed and 
been supported before it was established by human po- 
licy. It is, moreover, to weaken, in those who profess 
this religion, a pious confidence in its innate excellence 
and the patronage of its Author, and to foster in those 
who still reject it a suspicion that its friends are too 
conscious of its fallacies to trust it to its own merits. 

"Because experience witnesses that ecclesiastical 
establishments, instead of maintaining the purity and 
efficacy of religion, have had the contrary operation. 

"During almost fifteen centuries has the legal estab- 
lishment of religion been on trial. What have been 
its fruits? More or less, in all places, pride and indo- 
lence in the clergy ; ignorance and servility in the laity ; 
in both, superstition, bigotry, and persecution. Inquire 
of the teachers of Christianity for the ages in which it 
appeared in its greatest lustre. Those of every sect 
point to the ages prior to its incorporation with the civil 
policy. Propose a restoration to this primitive state, in 
which its teachers depended upon the voluntary reward 
of their flocks. Many of them predict its downfall ! 
17 



194 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GIKIA. 

On which side ought their testimony to have greatest 
weight ? When for, or when against, their interest ? 

"Because the establishment in question is not neces- 
sary for the support of civil government. 

" If it be urged as necessary for the support of civil 
government only as it is a means of supporting religion, 
and if it be not necessary for the latter purpose, it can- 
not be necessary for the former. If religion be not 
within the cognizance of civil government, how can its 
legal establishment be said to be necessary to civil 
government ? What influence, in fact, have ecclesias- 
tical establishments had on civil society ? In some in- 
stances they have been seen to erect a spiritual tyranny 
on the ruins of the civil authority ; in more instances 
have they been seen upholding the thrones of political 
tyranny ; in no instance have they been seen the guar- 
dians of the liberties of the people. Rulers who wished 
to subvert the public liberty may have found an estab- 
lished clergy convenient auxiliaries. A just govern- 
ment, instituted to secure and perpetuate it, needs them 
not. Such a government will be best supported by pro- 
tecting every citizen in the enjoyment of his religion 
with the same equal hand that protects his person and 
his property, but neither invading the equal rights of 
any sect, nor suffering any sect to invade those of an- 
other. 

" Because the proposed establishment is a departure 
from the generous policy which, offering an asylum to 
the persecuted and oppressed of every nation and of 
every religion, promised a lustre to our country and an 
accession to the number of our citizens. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 195 

" What a melancholy mark is the bill of sudden de- 
generacy ! Instead of holding forth an asylum to the 
persecuted, it is itself a signal for persecution. It 
degrades from the equal rank of citizens those whose 
opinions on religion do not bend to the legislative au- 
thority. Distant as it may be in its present form from 
the Inquisition, it differs from it only in degree. The 
one is the first step, the other is the last, in the career 
of intolerance. The magnanimous sufferer under the 
cruel scourge in foreign regions must view the bill as a 
beacon on our coast, warning him to seek some other 
haven, where liberty and philanthropy, in their due 
extent, may offer a more certain repose from his 
troubles. 

" Because it will have a like tendency to banish our 
citizens. 

" The allurements presented by other situations are 
every day thinning our number. To superadd a fresh 
motive to emigration, by revoking the liberty which 
they now enjoy, would be the same species of folly 
which has dishonored and depopulated flourishing 
kingdoms. 

" Because it will destroy that moderation and har- 
mony, which the forbearance of our laws to inter- 
meddle with religion has produced among its several 
sects. 

"Torrents of blood have been spilled in the Old 
World, by vain attempts of the secular arm to ex- 
tinguish religious discord, by proscribing all differences 
of religious opinion. Time has at length revealed the 
true remedy. Every relaxation of a narrow and rig- 



196 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

orous policy, wherever it has been tried, has been 
found to assuage the disease. The American theatre 
has exhibited proofs that equal and complete liberty, if 
it does not wholly eradicate it, sufficiently destroys its 
malignant influence on the health and prosperity of the 
State. If, with the salutary effect of this system under 
our own eyes, we begin to contract the bounds of reli- 
gious freedom, we know no name that will too severely 
reproach our folly. At least let warning be taken at 
the first fruits of the threatened innovation. The very 
appearance of the bill has transformed the i Christian 
forbearance, love, and charity/ which of late mutually 
prevailed, into animosities and jealousies, which may 
not soon be appeased. What mischiefs may not be 
dreaded should this enemy to the public quiet be 
armed with the force of a law? 

" Because the policy of the bill is adverse to the 
diffusion of the light of Christianity. 

" The first wish of those who enjoy this precious 
gift, ought to be, that it may be imparted to the whole 
race of mankind. Compare the number of those who 
have as yet received it, with the number still remain- 
ing under the dominion of false religions, and how 
small is the former ! Does the policy of the bill tend 
to lessen the disproportion ? No. It at once discour- 
ages those who are strangers to the light of truth from 
coming into the regions of it, and countenances, by 
example, nations who continue in darkness, in shutting 
out those who might carry it to them. Instead of 
leveling, as far as possible, every obstacle to the victo- 
rious progress of truth, the bill with an ignoble and 



EAEL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA. 197 

unchristian timidity would circumscribe it with a wall 
of defence, and give all latitude to the encroachments 
of error. 

"Because attempts to enforce, by legal sanctions acts 
obnoxious to so great a proportion of the citizens, tend 
to enervate the laws in general, and to slacken the 
bands of society. 

" If it be difficult to execute any law which is not 
generally deemed necessary or salutary, what must be 
the case where it is deemed invalid or dangerous? 
And what may be the effect of so striking an example of 
impotence in the government, on its general authority ? 

" Because a measure of such singular magnitude 
and delicacy ought not to be imposed, without the 
clearest evidence that it is called for by a majority of 
the citizens, and no satisfactory method is yet proposed 
by which the majority in this case may be determined. 

" ' The people of the respective counties are requested 
to signify their opinion respecting the adoption of the 
bill, to the next Legislature ;' but (how ? By the 
opinions of the representatives elected ?) The repre- 
sentation must be made equal, before the voice, either 
of the representatives, or of the counties will be that 
of the people. Our hope is that neither of the former 
will, after due consideration, espouse the dangerous 
principle of the bill. Should the event disappoint us, 
it will still leave us in full confidence, that a fair 
appeal to the latter will reverse the sentence against 
our liberties. 

" Because finally, i The equal right of every citizen, 
to the free exercise of his religion, according to the 

17* 



198 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

dictates, of conscience/ is held by the same tenure with 
all our other rights.* 

"If we recur to its origin, it is equally (with all our 
other rights) the gift of nature ; if we weigh its im- 
portance, it cannot be less dear to us ; if we consult 
the i Declaration of Eights, which pertain to the good 
people of Virginia, as the basis and foundation of 
government/ it is enumerated with equal solemnity, 
or rather with studied emphasis. Either then, we 
must say, that the will of the Legislature is the only 
measure of their authority ; or that in the plenitude 
of their authority, they may sweep away all our funda- 
mental rights; or that they are bound to leave this 
particular right untouched and sacred. Either we 
must say, that they may control the freedom of the 
press ; may abolish the trial by jury ; may swallow up 
the Executive and Judiciary powers of the State ; nay, 
that they may annihilate our very right of suffrage, 
and erect themselves into an independent and heredi- 
tary Assembly ; or we must say that they have no au- 
thority to enact into a law the bill under consideration. 

"We, the subscribers, say, that the General Assembly 
of this Commonwealth have no such authority; and 
that no effort on our part may be omitted against so 
dangerous a usurpation, we oppose to it this re- 
monstrance ; earnestly praying, as we are in duty 
bound, that the Supreme Lawgiver of the Universe, 
by illuminating those to whom it is addressed, may, on 
the one hand, turn aside their counsels from every 
act which would affront his holy prerogative, or vio- 

* Dictation of Eights, in the State Constitution. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 199 

late the trust committed to them ; and on the other, 
guide them into every measure which may be worthy 
of his blessing, may redound to their own praise, and 
may establish more firmly the liberties, the prosperity, 
and the happiness of this Commonwealth/'* 

Such as shown by their memorials, were unmis- 
takably, the positions of the various denominations, on 
the several questions pending before the Legislature of 
1785, in Virginia. The Episcopalians adhered to the 
State Establishment, and earnestly urged its continu- 
ance and support by the government, entreating the 
Legislature to administer a suitable rebuke to those 
who so pertinaciously sought its overthrow. The 
Methodists seconded the claims of the Episcopalians 
with all their might. The Presbyterians were in favor 
of a State Establishment of religion, but so modified 
as that, instead of constituting any one denomination 
as the State Religion, to make all orthodox denomina- 
tions — the Episcopalian, the Methodist, the Presby- 
terian, and the Baptist — equally and alike, the Re- 
ligion of the State, and advocated the support of them 
all by taxes assessed upon all the people, and collected, 
and paid over to them by the government. To all 
these schemes the Baptists opposed a most strenuous 
resistance. On the main subject, they stood alone as 
they had always done, but were not abashed on that 
account, nor the less firmly determined to pursue their 
object until they were crowned with success, or until 
they were convinced that their attainment was im- 
practicable. 

*Semple's History of the Virginia Baptists, pp. 435—444. 



200 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

CHAPTER XV. 

TRIUMPH OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY IN VIRGINIA. 

Defeat of the bill Establishing a Provision for the Teachers of Religion. 
Passage of the law Establishing Religious Freedom. History of 
that law. Its provisions. Opinions of it by Episcopalians and 
Methodists. Passage of the law Incorporating the Episcopal Church. 
Repeal of that law. Passage of a law repealing all laws in Rela- 
tion to the State Church, and by which it ceased to be the State Church. 
Sale of the 



The Legislature of 1785 assembled. The several 
questions to which we have referred as pending were 
introduced. The expected conflict began. The battle 
was long and arduous. The bill Establishing a Pro- 
vision for the Teachers of Religion — in other words, 
the new form proposed for a State Establishment of 
Religion — was put upon its passage ; its friends and its 
opponents were intensely interested ; arguments on both 
sides were exhausted; the memorials of the Episcopa- 
lians, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Baptists were read 
and heard with attention ; the question was taken ; the 
bill was defeated by a large majority. In this result 
the Baptists gained yet another glorious victory; the 
more glorious, because they here stood alone, all the 
other denominations being against them, and because 
in this case Patrick Henry forsook them, and headed 
the Presbyterian scheme, which, as has been said, pro- 
bably owed its paternity to him. The Baptists were 
now full of confidence in the complete success of their. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 201 

political principles, and pressed on with every assurance 
to final triumph. 

Lest, however, it should be thought that too much is 
claimed in this case for the Baptists, the testimony of 
their opponents themselves may be introduced as con- 
clusive. Eev. Dr. Hawks, the Episcopal writer, speak- 
ing of the defeat of the bill, says : 

" The Baptists were the principal promoters of this 
work, and, in truth, did more than any other denomi- 
nation in its accomplishment." 

Speaking of the course of the Presbyterians in rela- 
tion to this frill, and also the bill Establishing Religious 
Liberty in Virginia, subsequently adopted, Dr. Hawks 
adds: 

" There can be little doubt that the distinguished in- 
dividual [Mr. Jeiferson], who was the leader in secu- 
ring the adoption of the measures already detailed, en- 
tertained the belief that it would be no difficult task 
to complete at a future session the work he had begun ; 
and to negative the plan of a general assessment for the 
support of Christianity ; nor would his expectations in 
this particular have been disappointed, but for a cir- 
cumstance recorded by himself, as having interposed 
obstacles. In his chief object, that of giving a death- 
blow to the legalized superiority of the Establishment 
over all other denominations of Christians, he was cor- 
dially supported by a large body of allies who belonged 
to the dissenting interests; but when that great end 
was once attained [the weakening of the Establishment 
by taking away the pecuniary support of the State], 
and every religious society stood upon the same level, 



202 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

the question in dispute assumed to these [Presbyterian] 
allies a very different aspect, and they deserted the 
standard under which they had before achieved their 
victory. They had prostrated the Church; they had 
proved themselves not at all reluctant to strip her 
clergy of that important maintenance which was se- 
cured to them by the possession of property [the 
glebes]; but they now manifested an aversion more 
natural than consistent, to being left to find a preca- 
rious support for themselves, in the tender mercies of 
a set of voluntary contributors; and the manner, al- 
most approaching to querulousness, in which this de- 
sertion is recorded [by him], accompanied as it is by an 
insinuation as to the motives of the deserters, justifies 
the suspicion that the desertion was felt to be ungene- 
rous. The impartial reader of a future day will proba- 
bly conclude that it was a game not unskillfully played 
in which the troops outwitted the general. The Bap- 
tist historian boasts [and, as Dr. Hawks admits, not 
without reason, from the facts in the case,] that they 
alone were uniform in their efforts to destroy the sys- 
tem of an assessment, and introduce the plan of volun- 
tary contributions; that in other denominations there 
was much division of sentiment between ministers and 
people; and that remonstrance came at last from none 
but the Baptists." * 

The relations of the Presbyterian Church to this 
new plan of a State Religion, which consisted in estab- 
lishing four denominations instead of one, and support- 
ing the ministers of them all, needs some further state- 
* History of the Prot. Ep. Church in Virginia, pp. 151, 152, 153. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 203 

merits to place that question beyond the reach of any 
future dispute, since it has lately been affirmed that 
they, as well as the Baptists, did remonstrate against 
the whole system of measures looking to that end, and 
that, therefore, the "boast of the Baptists," that they 
stood alone, is not justified by the facts in the case. 
Let, then, all these facts be fully stated. 

Have we not seen that the Hanover Presbytery, 
which then embraced most of the Presbyterians in the 
State, in its elaborately prepared memorial, conceded, if 
it did not claim, the legitimacy of legislation by the 
State as to the temporalities of the Church; that this 
was necessary for the preservation of society and good 
government, which propositions were denied and re- 
futed by the Baptists in their memorial; that they 
prayed that the scheme of assessment, if the State 
should decide to adopt one, might be arranged on the 
most liberal plan; and that this body proceeded to 
submit a plan to the Legislature, "agreeably to which 
alone," it affirmed, " Presbytery are willing to admit a 
general assessment for the support of religion." The 
discussions of the year had revealed to the Hanover 
Presbytery the unpopularity of the position they had 
assumed. It took the alarm. Efforts were made at 
its next session to induce it to recede from its position 
of the last year. It did so by resolution, but it was 
now too late. Its memorial was before the world, and 
the ends it sought had all been fairly defeated. To 
recede now might have been very wise, but was cer- 
tainly not very timely. 

The Presbyterians also adopted another expedient 



204 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

to turn aside the odium of their measures, Dr. Foote 
says : " By invitation, signed by the ministers and 
several private members/' a Convention was called to 
consider these matters. This Convention assembled 
at Bethel, August 10th, 1785, and "Protested against 
all assessments by law for religious purposes, and all 
incorporations of religious denominations ."* But this 
proceeding was wholly unofficial. It was not a 
Presbytery, a Synod, nor a General Assembly, but 
simply a Convention. It did not, therefore, represent 
the sentiments of the Presbyterian Church, but proved 
only that there were Presbyterians who did not concur 
in political sentiment with the Hanover Presbytery. 
Of these doings, that Presbytery could afterwards, if 
it saw proper, either claim the credit, or disavow the 
responsibility, as future events should show to be most 
for its interests. It was a cautious and politic mea- 
sure. Doubtless the Episcopalians could have assem- 
bled a Convention which would have adopted pre- 
cisely the same measures. But would they have ex- 
pressed the sentiments of the Episcopal Church? 
Surely not. This retrocession, however, from the po- 
sition assumed in their memorial, and this protest of 
their Convention, remained a " dead letter." Neither 
was ever communicated to the Legislature. Officially 
they were in favor of the " Law Establishing a Provi- 
sion for the Teachers of the Christian Religion." Un- 
officially they were against it. They contradicted and 
nullified themselves. 

Mr. Jefferson, therefore, was right in his statements 

* Foote's Sketches of Virginia, pp. 341, 344. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA, 205 

in regard to the proceedings of the Presbyterians on 
this subject ; Dr, Hawks was also right ; and it 
follows that Dr. Seniple's declaration is true, that at 
last the Baptists were the only remonstrants against 
this measure, and that, as to the churches, they 
achieved this great victory alone, and unaided by any 
other denomination. 

After the defeat of this bill, came up the proposed 
"Law Establishing Religious Freedom." This law 
had its origin, as we have seen, in the General Asso- 
ciation of the Baptists of Virginia, at its session in 
1777, eight years before its adoption by the General 
Assembly. A project was that year laid before the 
Legislature by Mr. Ford, but did not engage the de- 
liberations of the body. At the session for 1779, a 
more perfect form of the same law — prepared at the 
instance of Mr. Ford, by Mr. Jefferson and Mr, 
Madison, during the session of the preceding Legisla- 
ture — was submitted to the General Association, con- 
sidered and approved, and its adoption by the State 
regularly urged every year thereafter, until 1785, 
when it became a law. Of his connection with this 
law, Mr. Jefferson himself gives the following ac- 
count : 

" Early in the session of 1776, to which I returned, 
(from Congress) I moved and presented a bill for the 
Revision of the laws, which was passed on the 24th of 
October, and on the 6th of November, Mr. Pendleton, 
Mr. Wythe, George Mason, Thomas L. Lee, and 
myself were appointed a committee to execute the 
work. We agreed to meet in Fredericksburg, to settle 

18 



206 MARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

the plan of operations, and to distribute the work. 
"We met there accordingly, on the 18th of January, 
1777. The first question was, whether we should 
propose to abolish the whole existing system of laws, 
and prepare a new and complete Institute, or preserve 
the general system, and only modify it to suit the pre- 
sent state of things." The latter plan was adopted. 
Soon afterwards Mr. Mason resigned his place as a 
member of the committee, and Mr. Lee died. These 
events left only three men to carry forward the design. 
Mr. Jefferson continues : 

" We were employed in the work from that time to 
February, 1779, when we met in Williamsburg ; that 
is to say, Mr. Pendleton, Mr. Wythe, and myself; 
and meeting day by day, we examined critically our 
several parts, sentence by sentence, scrutinizing and 
amending, until we had agreed upon the whole. We 
then returned home; had fair copies made of our 
several parts, which were reported to the General 
Assembly, January the 18th, 1779, by Mr. Wythe 
and myself, Mr. Pendleton's residence being distant, 
and he having authorized us by letter to declare his 
approbation. 

" We had, into this work, brought so much of the 
Common Law as it was thought necessary to alter ; all 
the British Statutes from Magna Charta to the present 
day ; and all the laws of Virginia, from the establish- 
ment of our Legislature in the 4th of James I, to the 
present time, which we thought should be retained; 
within the compass of a hundred and sixty-six bills, 
making a printed folio of ninety pages only. Some 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 207 

bills were taken out occasionally, from time to time, 
and passed. But the main body of the work was not 
entered upon by the Legislature, until after the general 
peace in 1785, when by the unwearied exertions of 
Mr. Madison, in opposition to the endless quibbles, 
chicaneries, perversions, vexations, and delays of law- 
yers and demi-lawyers, most of the bills were passed 
by the Legislature with little alteration. 

"The 'Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom/ 
the principles of which had to a certain degree been 
enacted before, I had drawn in all the latitude of 
reason and right. It still met with opposition, but 
with some mutilations of the preamble, it was finally 
passed," " December, 1785, more than six years after it 
had been first reported to the House." * 

Putting all these facts together we have a suffi- 
ciently clear history of the " Bill for Establishing Re- 
ligious Freedom." Its substance was involved in 
" The Declaration of Principles by the General Asso- 
ciation of the Baptists of Virginia, in 1775; it was 
submitted in the form of a protest, in 1777; it was 
put into proper form for Mr. Ford, the Commissioner 
of the Association, by Mr. Jefferson, with the assist- 
ance of Mr. Madison, in 1778; it was submitted to the 
General Association, read and approved, and that 
approval published in the minutes and in the Gazette, 
and afterwards moved in the Legislature in 1779; it 
met with such opposition as to delay its passage for six 
years ; when it was pressed to a final adoption i by 
the unwearied exertions of Mr. Madison/ " 
* Jefferson's Works, vol. i., pp. 34-36. 



208 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINIA . 

The kind of opposition with which this law had to 
contend, may be imagined by referring to recorded 
opinions of it by several religious writers. Dr. Hawks, 
for example, ignorant of the fact that it was a Baptist 
measure ; and not knowing that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. 
Madison cultivated the most intimate relations with the 
Baptist ministers, such as Williams, Walker, Waller, 
Ford, Leland, and others, and had been accustomed for 
years to send for them and others of a kindred charac- 
ter, or to visit them for consultation on this subject; 
and desirous especially to stigmatize this law as an 
emanation of Mr. Jefferson's supposed infidelity, re- 
marks : — 

"An act was passed by the Legislature of 1785, 
which was viewed by many as subversive, in its decla- 
rations, of the Christian religion, and called forth at 
the time, the severest animadversions of some who still 
reverenced the faith of the apostles. This was 'The 
Act for Establishing Religious Freedom/ and preceded 
by a memorial from the pen of Mr. Madison, which is 
supposed to have led to the passage of the bill." * 

Thus it will be seen that to this bill especially, as has 
before been said — and not particularly, as stated by Be- 
nedict and others, the bill Establishing a provision for 
the Teachers of Religion — that the Baptist memorial 
of this session had reference. It might possibly have 
been, and probably was read on both occasions, and 
while it defeated the latter secured the adoption, as af- 
firmed by Mr. Jefferson and Dr. Hawks, of the former. 
It is well known that when the General Committee of 

•Hist. Prot. Ep. Ch. in Va., pp. 173, 174. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 209 

the Baptists of Virginia, following the example of the 
General Association, had issued its Declaration of 
Principles, which was simply a repetition of that 
adopted twelve years before by its predecessor, this De- 
claration was placed in the hands of Mr. Madison with 
a request that he would embody it in their behalf, in a 
memorial to the Legislature, to be issued when their 
great measure, "The Act for Establishing Religious 
Freedom," should come up before that body. These 
proceedings occurred in August, 1785. The Legisla- 
ture assembled in October of the same year, two months 
afterwards. Meanwhile the address, large extracts 
from which have been presented in previous chapters, 
had been written, numerously signed, and sent to the 
capital. The bill had been, from the time that it was 
prepared, delayed eight years, and six after it was re- 
ported to the Legislature, "by lawyers, demi-lawyers," 
and clergymen who believed it "subversive of the 
Christian religion," and who, as Mr. Jefferson affirms, 
employed for that purpose "endless quibbles, chicane- 
ries, and perversions." The Bill was put upon its pas- 
sage in December. The forces for and against it were 
arrayed in all their strength. The conflict was long 
and obstinate. The Baptist memorial was read by Mr. 
Madison, who put forth all his great powers in its sup- 
port. The question was demanded. The bill passed 
by a very_ large majority. The Baptists and their 
friends were in raptures. Their great victory was 
achieved. Christians in Virginia of all classes were 
henceforth free. 

In these, and other facts in this connection, an ex- 
18* 



210 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

planation is found of some things which have hereto- 
fore been floating on the surface of literature and in 
religious society, in the somewhat intangible form of 
general rumor. Not a few writers have referred to 
them in about the same terms. ' They have told us, that 
Mr. Jefferson was in the habit of attending the meet- 
ings of a Baptist Church which worshiped in the vi- ,- 
cinity of his residence, and of closely observing its polity 
especially, which was of course conducted openly, and 
that he afterwards said to his friends, that many of his 
ideas as to what a republic should be, were derived 
from the government of that church. In his late ad- 
mirable work on " The Progress of Baptist Principles," 
Dr. Curtis assures us, that Mrs. Madison testified that 
he so stated to her. However this may be, it is un- 
questionably true, as many yet living aver, that Mr. 
Jefferson was accustomed freely to confess to his asso- 
ciates, and especially to Baptists, ministers and others, 
that the Baptist doctrines on that subject had enlight- 
ened and fixed his principles in relation to religious 
freedom. No one, it is presumed, can calmly con- 
template the facts now submitted, and seriously ques- 
tion the truth of this general statement. 

Any one who has read the " Declaration of Princi- 
ples on Political Subjects," by the General Association 
of the Baptists of Virginia, and of the General Com- 
mittee which succeeded it, and their various memorials, 
petitions, and remonstrances, addressed to the Conven- 
tion and to the Legislature of the State, and has com- 
pared them with this law, must see their exact simi- 
larity in their substance, and, in many instances, even 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GIXIA. 211 

in language. This identity could not have been acci- 
dental. Irrespective of the facts in the case, which 
have been stated, every intelligent man must see that 
the one is the result of the other. The main features 
of the law are as follows : 

" Whereas , Almighty God hath created the mind 
free; that all attempts jto influence it by temporal 
punishments, or burdens, or civil incapacitations, tend 
only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness, and 
are a departure from the plan of the holy Author of 
our religion, who being Lord both of body and mind, 
yet chose not to propagate it by coercion on either, as 
was in his almighty power to do ; and the impious pre- 
sumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as 
ecclesiastical, who being themselves but fallible and 
uninspired men, have assumed dominion over the faith 
of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of 
thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such 
endeavoring to impose them on others, have established 
and maintained false religions over the greater part of 
the world, and through all time ; that to compel a 
man to furnish contributions of money for the propa- 
gation of opinions which he disbelieves, is sinful and 
tyrannical ; or even to force him to support this or that 
teacher of his own religious persuasion is depriving 
him of the comfortable liberty of giving his contribu- 
tions to the particular pastor whose morals he would 
make his pattern, and whose powers he feels most per- 
suasive to righteousness ; and is withdrawing from the 
ministry those temporary rewards which, proceeding 
from an approbation of their personal conduct, are an 



212 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

additional incitement to earnest and unremitting labors 
for the instruction of mankind ; that our civil rights 
have no dependence upon our religious opinions, any 
more than on our opinions on physics or geometry; 
that therefore the proscribing any citizen as unworthy 
the public confidence by laying upon him an incapacity 
of being called to offices of trust and emolument, unless 
he profess or renounce this or that religious opinion, is 
depriving him injuriously of those privileges and ad- 
vantages to which, in common with his fellow-citizens, 
he has a natural right; that it tends only to corrupt 
the principles of that religion it was meant to encourage 
by bribing with monopoly of worldly honors and emo- 
luments those who will externally profess and conform 
to it; that though, indeed, those are criminal who do 
not withstand such temptations, yet neither are those 
innocent who lay the bait in their way ; that to suffer 
the civil magistrate to intrude his powers into the field 
of opinion, and to restrain the propagation or profession 
of principles, on supposition of their ill tendency, is a 
dangerous fallacy, which at once destroys all religious 
liberty, because he, being of course the judge of that 
tendency, will make his opinion the rule of his judg- 
ment, and approve or condemn the sentiments of others 
only as they shall square with or differ from his own ; 
that it is time enough for the rightful purposes of civil 
government, for its officers to interfere when principles 
break out into overt acts against peace and good order ; 
and finally, that ' Truth is great, and will prevail/ if 
left to herself; that she is the proper antagonist of 
error, and has nothing to fear from the conflict, unless 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 213 

by human interposition disarmed of her natural wea- 
pons, free argument and debate; errors ceasing to be 
dangerous when she is permitted freely to contradict 
them ; 

"Be it enacted by this General Assemby, that no 
man shall be compelled to frequent or support any 
religious worship, place, or ministry whatsoever; nor 
shall he be enforced or restrained, molested or bur- 
dened, in his body or goods, nor shall otherwise suffer 
on account of his religious opinions or belief; but 
that all men shall be free to profess, and by argument 
to maintain their opinions in matters of religion ; and 
that the same shall in no wise diminish, enlarge, or 
affect their civil capacities ; " " and that we do declare 
that the rights hereby asserted, are the natural rights 
of mankind." * 

Another law was passed by the Legislature of 1785, 
the introduction of which in that form was not antici- 
pated, and which in its tenor and design, was in con- 
tradiction of all its recent acts. Its leading provisions 
are as follows : — 

" Whereas, The clergy of the Protestant Episcopal 
Church, by their petitions presented, have requested 
that their church may be incorporated : 

"Be it enacted by the General Assembly, that every 
minister of the Protestant Episcopal Church now 
holding a parish within this Commonwealth, either by 
appointment from a vestry, or induction from a Gov- 
ernor, and all the vestrymen in the different parishes 
now instituted, or which may hereafter be instituted 

* Code of Virginia, p. 360. 



214 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

within this Commonwealth, that is to say, the minis- 
ters and vestrymen of each parish respectively, or in 
case of a vacancy, the vestry of each parish, and their 
successors forever, are hereby made a body corporate 
and politic ; " it goes on to enumerate the usual pow- 
ers conferred on incorporations, and gave each vestry 
with its ministers, authority "to hold property not 
exceeding in annual income eight hundred pounds ; " 
[ about four thousand dollars ] placed it in a position 
to sue and be sued; to hold and occupy the glebe 
lands; and generally to enjoy nearly all the advan- 
tages which they formerly possessed as the Established 
Church of the State.* 

The friends of equal religious rights seem not to 
have been prepared to give any suitable resistance to 
this bill ; in its favor, Patrick Henry exerted all his 
great powers and influence ; and it became a law ! 

The succeeding session of the Baptist General Com- 
mittee was held, commencing August 5th, 1786, at 
Anderson's in Buckingham County. Mr. Ford, its 
commissioner to the Legislature, made his report. He 
said : 

" He had waited on the House of Assembly accord- 
ing to appointment ; that the bill Establishing Eeli- 
gious Freedom had passed into a law ; that the bill 
Establishing a Provision for the Teachers of the 
Christian Religion, otherwise incorporating all the 
churches, and thus making them the religion of the 
State, had been defeated ; and that an act " Incorpo- 
rating the Protestant Episcopal Church had been 

* Hening's Statutes at Large, vol. xi. p. 532. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 215 

adopted, nearly replacing it in its former condition, 
and securing to them, in the possession of the glebes, 
a vast amount of property rightly belonging to the 
State, and thus giving them many and great advanta- 
ges over the Christians of other denominations." 

The General Committee, in view of this report, 
unanimously adopted, after mature deliberation, the 
following resolution, the provisions of which they 
carried out with their usual energy : 

"Resolved, That petitions ought to be drawn up, 
and circulated in the different counties [for the signa- 
tures of the people], and presented to the next General 
Assembly, praying for the repeal of the ' Act Incorpo- 
rating the Protestant Episcopal Church ;' and that 
the property vested in that church by this act, be sold, 
and the money applied to the public use." 

Petitions were prepared, and approved by the body ; 
they were placed in the hands of ministers and others; 
and Keuben Ford and John Leland were appointed to 
superintend them, and to act as commissioners to the 
General Assembly. 

In these movements the Baptists were warmly se- 
conded by the Presbyterians. The whole State was 
soon profoundly agitated. The current of feeling 
turned strongly against Mr. Henry, who, as a candi- 
date before the people for a seat in the ensuing Legis- 
lature, was beaten by a very ordinary man. The 
remainder of the story is told by Dr. Hawks, the 
Episcopal historian, with sufficient distinctness. He 
says: 

"The efforts of the Presbyterians and Baptists to 



216 EARL Y BAPT1S TS OF VIR GINIA. 

procure memorials to be presented to the Legislature 
for a repeal of the act incorporating the church, and 
for the distribution of its property for the public bene- 
fit, have already been recorded. The Convention [of 
the Episcopal Church] was not insensible to the danger 
to be apprehended from the deep-seated hostility of 
these two denominations, and therefore prepared a pe- 
tition to the Legislature, to counteract the effect of 
their memorials, and recommended to the several pa- 
rishes to prepare and present petitions of a similar 
character. But all was in vain. In the next session 
of the General Assembly of Virginia which succeeded 
the Convention, these memorials and petitions were 
brought up for consideration, and on the 5th of De- 
cember, 1786, the House of Delegates, among other 
resolutions, adopted the following: 

" ' That the Act for Incorporating the Protestant 
Episcopal Church ought to be repealed.' 

"On the 9th of January, 1787, the bill to carry into 
effect this resolution was passed by the Senate, and 
thus became the law of Virginia." * 

The Annual Session of the General Committee of 
the Baptists of Virginia for 1787, was held, commenc- 
ing on the 10th day of August, at Dover, in Gooch- 
land County. This session was memorable for the 
final measures which completed the reunion of all 
classes of Baptists then in Virginia. On this subject 
Dr. Benedict says : 

"The schism which took place among the Regular 
and Separate Baptists in 1766," "had continued with- 

* History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in Va., p. 194. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIE GINM. 217 

out being completely healed for about twenty years, 
although a very friendly intercourse had been " " kept 
up among them. But in 1787 the happy period ar- 
rived in which all disputes between these two bodies 
were compromised, buried, and forgotten." * This re- 
union was the more easy to obtain, and the more happy 
and effectual, because it was sought in the midst of a 
great and glorious revival among all the Baptist 
churches, which continued to prevail until near the 
close of that century. 

Mr. Ford and Mr. Leland reported verbally. They 
said: "That according to their instructions they pre- 
sented the memorial entrusted to them to the Legisla- 
ture ; that in compliance with their petitions, the ' Act 
Incorporating the Protestant Episcopal Church ' was 
repealed; but that the Glebe laws still remained un- 
touched, and in full force." 

These splendid estates, so numerous and so valuable, 
were still in the hands of the Episcopal clergy, who 
were living upon them in princely style. Their re- 
storation to the State, and sale to diminish the burden 
of the public debt, alone remained, and the Baptists 
would have gained all the objects they ever sought at 
the hands of the State government. This they found 
to be their most difficult work. Long was its accom- 
plishment delayed; and often were they foiled in their 
attempts; but never for a moment did they lose sight 
of their object or relax their exertions, until success 
crowned their indefatigable endeavors. 

Again the General Committee adopted resolutions 



* History, &c, vol. ii, pp. 60, 61. 
19 



218 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

declaring the glebes public property, and that they 
ought to be sold, and the proceeds applied to public 
purposes. A memorial to this end was reported and 
adopted, and immense numbers of signatures of the 
people obtained, and Eleazer Clay, Reuben Ford, John 
Waller, and John Williams were appointed commis- 
sioners to lay it before the Legislature, and obtain, if 
possible, their purpose. They met with no success. 
The next year the same process was repeated, and Ice- 
land, Waller, and Clay were appointed commissioners, 
but the result was the same as at the previous session. 
Each year, for eleven years, they continued undis- 
couraged — though failing in every instance — to memo- 
rialize and petition the Legislature. In 1799, their ad- 
dress was favorably received and considered, and the 
following bill was introduced and adopted, " Entitled 
an Act to Repeal certain Acts, and to Declare the Con- 
struction of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution 
Concerning Religion: 

" Whereas, the Constitution of the State of Virginia 
hath pronounced the Government of the King of Eng- 
land to have been totally dissolved by the Revolution; 
hath substituted in place of the government so dis- 
solved, a new Civil Government; and hath in the Bill 
of Rights, excepted from the powers given to the sub- 
stituted government, the power of reviving any species 
of Ecclesiastical or church government in lieu of that 
dissolved, by referring the subject of religion to the 
conscience; and 

"Whereas, the several acts presently recited, do ad- 
mit the church established under the Regal government 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIR GINIA. 219 

to have been continued so, subsequently to the Consti- 
tution; have bestowed property upon that church; 
have asserted a legislative right to establish any reli- 
gious sect and have incorporated religious sects ; all of 
which is inconsistent with the principles of the Con- 
stitution and of Religious Freedom, and manifestly 
tends to the re-establishment of a National Church; 
for remedy whereof, 

a Be it enacted," and the law proceeds to describe 
and repeal the several acts of 1776, of 1779, of 1785, 
Of 1786, and of 1788; and to declare that "The Act 
Establishing Religious Freedom contains the true con- 
struction of the Bill of Rights, and of the Constitu- 
tion." * 

This law swept away the last vestiges of the Estab- 
lished Church ; it annihilated all pretence of author- 
ity to restore it, or to establish by law or incorporate 
to be supported by the State, any form of religion, or 
any church or churches whatever ; and it alienated all 
the glebes; but it left them still in the hands of the 
Episcopal clergy, and neither ordered their sale nor oc- 
cupancy by the State. The Baptists were not satisfied, 
and continued to memorialize, remonstrate, and petition 
the Legislature, which by the law of January 12th, 
1802, completed the work. That law is as follows: — 

" Whereas, The General Assembly on the 24th day 
of January, 1799, by their act of that date, repealed 
all the laws relative to the late Protestant Episcopal 
Church, and declared a true exposition of the Bill of 
Rights and Constitution, respecting the same, to be 

* Laws of Virginia, edition 1803, p. 388. 



220 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

contained in the act entitled ( An act for Establishing 
Religious Freedom/ thereby recognizing the principle 
that all property formerly belonging to the said church, 
of every description, devolved on the good people of 
this Commonwealth on the dissolution of the British 
Government here, in the same degree in which the 
right and interest of the said church was derived from 
them. 

"Be it therefore enacted," and the General Assem- 
bly proceeds to order the sale of the glebes, and the 
application of the funds arising, all of which in due 
time was carried into full effect. 

In 1786, the Presbyterians acted with the Baptists 
in this work. They then withdrew, and from that 
time the Baptists were emphatically alone. The tes- 
timony of Dr. Hawks on this point is important. 
Speaking of the decision of the Baptist General Com- 
mittee in 1787, he says: — * 

" That vote decided the fate of the glebes." And 
in another place: — "After the final success of the Bap- 
tists [in defeating the bill Establishing a Provision 
for the Teachers of the Christian Religion, in securing 
the adoption of the law Establishing Religious Free- 
dom, and various other similar measures] their next 
efforts were to procure the sale of the church lands, 
and their efforts never ceased until the glebes were 
sold." 

In another place, speaking of the Baptists, he says: 
"The war which they waged against the Church was a 
war of extermination. They seem to have known no 
* Hist. Prot. Ep. Ch. Va., pp. 121, 122, 137, 138, 152, 153. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 221 

relentings, and their hostility never ceased for seven 
and twenty years. They revenged themselves for 
their sufferings [at the hands of the Establishment] by 
the almost total ruin of the Church." 

The last battle had now been fought, and the vic- 
tory of the Baptists was complete. Nothing more 
could reasonably be desired. The Government of 
Virginia, in all dealings with religious questions had 
taken ground which was thoroughly Baptist. The 
former vigilance was no longer necessary, and the Ge- 
neral Committee — "The Standing Sentinel on Politi- 
cal Subjects" — which on account of several of its acts 
infringing the rights of the churches, had elicited their 
jealousy, was, in 1799, dissolved. As a centre of bro- 
therly intercourse merely, an organization was formed 
under the name of the General Meeting of Correspond- 
ence, which twenty years after gave place to the purely 
missionary body, now known as the General Association 
of Virginia. 

The war with England, into which all the Baptists 
entered so heartily, and their increasing excitement on 
political subjects naturally withdrew their minds to a 
great extent from religion. A painful spiritual dearth 
came over the churches. It was hardly possible that 
it could have been otherwise. When, however, peace 
returned to the country, and most of their political 
purposes had been gained, a new spirit and life were 
diffused among the people, and a glorious revival 
spread throughout the whole State. Dr. Benedict says 
of it:— 

"This work, which was powerful and extensive, 

19* 



222 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

began on the banks of James River, in 1785, and 
thence spread, like fire among stubble, in all direc- 
tions," "and as it continued for several years, there 
were very few churches which were not visited with 
its salutary influence." " It continued spreading until 
thousands were converted and baptized, besides many 
who joined the Methodists and Presbyterians. The 
Episcopalians, although much dejected at the loss of 
the Establishment, had nevertheless continued their 
public worship, and were attended by respectable con- 
gregations. But after this revival their society fell fast 
into dissolution." The Baptists "were joined by per- 
sons of much greater weight in civil society " than for- 
merly. "Their congregations became more numerous 
than those of any other Christian sect, and they may 
from this period be considered as taking the lead in 
matters of religion." * 
* History of the Baptists, vol. 2, pp. 90, 91, 92. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 223 



CHAPTER XVI. 

INFLUENCE OF THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIR- 
GINIA IN THE FORMATION OF THE GEN- 
ERAL GOVERNMENT. 

Incidental influence. Direct influence. Objections to the Federal Con- 
stitution. Correspondence of the General Committee ivith Wash- 
ington. Amendment to the Constitution. Its acceptance by the 



Incidental allusions have been made in previous 
chapters to the influence of the Early Baptists of Vir- 
ginia in the formation of the General Government. 
In fixing the character of the Federal Constitution, 
their influence was powerfully felt, since it was exerted 
indirectly through the medium of their friends, and 
directly through appeals and addresses. The objects 
which they sought, were fully and satisfactorily ac- 
complished. 

In the great work which they had accomplished in 
Virginia, the Baptists, as we have seen, had, as their 
coadjutors, the ablest politicians in the State. These 
very men were now in the councils of the nation that 
formed the Constitution of the United States. That 
Constitution, as at first published, failed to meet the 
expectation of the Baptists of Virginia. The sixth 
article provided as follows : — 

" No religious test shall ever be required as a quali- 
fication to any office or public trust, under the United 
States." 



224 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

To persons less jealous and vigilant, this might 
have seemed, and did seem to General Washington for 
example, sufficient. The Baptists had suffered too 
much to be content with a reference to that subject so 
slight and indefinite. In their opinion, it was radi- 
cally defective in plain, full, and direct declaration. It 
was proposed by Mr. Pinckney of South Carolina, and 
even this was resisted by Mr. Sherman of Connecticut, 
who preferred that the Constitution should not refer 
to religion at all, maintaining that " the prevailing 
liberality was a sufficient security against such tests."* 
Mr. Sherman's State it was well known, retained its 
" Established Order " which was supported by a tax 
upon all the people, Baptists as well as others. These 
circumstances were suspicious. And besides, it did 
not, in so many words, affirm that no national religion 
should ever be established; it did not guaranty to 
every citizen equal protection in his person, his pro- 
perty, and all his rights, irrespective of his faith and 
worship; it did not declare that no one religious de- 
nomination should ever, in any respect, be preferred 
above another ; it did not disavow the right of the 
government ever to interfere with religion in any 
form; it only gave an assurance that " No' religious 
test should ever be required as a qualification to any 
office, or public trust under the United States." 

The General Committee of the Baptists of Virginia, 
for 1788, assembled March the 7th, at "Williams', in 
Goochland County. Before entering upon the subject 
of education, which occupied much of its attention at 

* Madison Papers, vol. 3, p. 1468. 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 225 

that meeting, the following question was submitted for 
its decision : — 

" Does the new Federal Constitution, which has now 
lately made its appearance in public, make sufficient 
provision for the secure enjoyment of religious liberty?" 

The question was entertained ; the Constitution was 
read ; and the whole subject fully and ably discussed. 
The question was then put to vote, and decided unani- 
mously in the negative.* 

The inquiry now arose as to what in this exigency 
was proper to be done. On motion, a committee was 
appointed to prepare an address to General Washing- 
ton on the subject, and to correspond with Baptists 
in other States, especially in Massachusetts, Rhode 
Island, and New York, and to obtain if practicable, 
their concurrence and co-operation, in obtaining such 
amendments to the Constitution of the General 
Government as might render it acceptable. At the 
head of this committee was placed the distinguished 
John Leland. It was instructed to report at the next 
Annual Meeting. 

The session of the General Committee for 1789, was 
held during the first week in August, in the city of 
Richmond. Mr. Leland had leave to report, and 
presented to the Committee copies of correspondence, 
and the proposed address to General Washington. 
The correspondence, if it has been preserved, is among 
the papers of Mr. Reuben Ford, or of Robert B. 
Semple, D. D., in the hands of their descendants, and 
to us inaccessible. The address was read, considered, 

*Semple's Hist. Va. Bapt., pp. 76, 77. 



226 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

adopted, signed officially, and transmitted to the Presi- 
dent. We make the following extracts : — 

"The General Committee of the United Baptist 
Churches in Virginia, assembled in the city of Rich- 
mond, August 8th, 1789, to the President of the 
United States : — 

" Sir, Among the many congratulations which you 
receive from societies, cities, States, and the whole 
country, we wish to offer ours, &c. ; " and after enu- 
merating various considerations, the address then pro- 
ceeds : — 

" The want of efficacy in the Confederation [without 
a General Government, extending over the whole 
country] the redundancy of laws in the States, and 
their partial administration, called aloud for a new 
arrangement of our system. The wisdom of the States 
for that purpose was collected in a Grand Convention 
over which you, Sir, had the honor to preside. A 
National Government in all its parts was recom- 
mended as the only preservative of the Union, which 
plan of Government is now in actual operation. 

" When the Constitution first made its appearance 
in Virginia, as a Society, we had unusual struggles of 
mind, fearing that the liberty of conscience, dearer to 
us than property or life, was not sufficiently secured. 
Perhaps our jealousies were heightened by the usage 
we received in Virginia under the Regal Government, 
when mobs, bonds, fines, and prisons were our fre- 
quent repasts. We are convinced on the one hand 
that without an effective National Government, the 
States would fall into disunion, and all the consequent 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 227 

evils ; and on the other we fear should we give 
this Constitution our assent, that we should be acces- 
sory to some religious oppression should any one 
society in the Union preponderate over all the rest, 
and get possession of the Government, which is very 
possible, and against which no provision is made ; we 
have voted unanimously that the Constitution does not 
make sufficient provision for the secure enjoyment of 
religious liberty. 

" Amidst all these inquietudes, our consolation arises 
from the consideration that the plan bears the signa- 
ture of a tried and trusty friend, in whose opinion it 
must be good ; and that if religious liberty is rather 
insecure in the Constitution, the Administration will 
certainly prevent all oppression ; for a Washington 
will preside. 

" May that Divine Munificence that covered your 
head in battle, make you a yet greater blessing to your 
admiring country in time of peace. Should the horrid 
evils that have been so pestiferous in Asia and Eu- 
rope — faction, ambition, war, perfidy, fraud, and per- 
secutions for conscience' sake — ever approach the 
borders of our happy nation, may the name and ad- 
ministration of our beloved President, like the radiant 
source of day, scatter all those dark clouds from the 
American hemisphere. And while we thus speak 
freely the language of our own hearts, we are satisfied 
that we express the sentiments of our brethren whom 
we represent." " It is our prayer to Almighty God, 
that the Federal Government and the Government of 
the respective States, without rivalship, may so co- 



228 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

operate together as to make the numerous people over 
whom you preside the happiest nation on earth, and 
you, Sir, the happiest man, in seeing a people whom, by 
the smiles of Providence you saved from vassalage by 
your martial valor, and made wise by your maxims, 
sitting securely under their vines and fig trees, enjoy- 
ing the perfection of human felicity. 

" May God long preserve your life and health for a 
blessing to the world in general, and to the United 
States in particular ; and when, like the sun, you have 
finished your course of great and unequalled services, 
and you go the way of all the earth, may the Divine 
Being who will reward every man according to his 
works, grant unto you a glorious admission into his 
everlasting kingdom, through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

To this address Washington returned promptly the 
following autograph reply : 

" To the General Committee representing the United 
Baptists of Virginia: 

"Gentlemen: — I request that you will accept my 
best acknowledgments for your congratulations on my 
appointment to the first office in the nation. The kind 
manner in which you mention my past conduct, equally 
claims the expression of my gratitude. 

"After we had, by the smiles of Divine Providence 
on our exertions, obtained the object for which we con- 
tended, I retired, at the conclusion of the war, with an 
idea that my country could have no further occasion 
for my services, and with the intention of never enter- 
ing again into public life. But when the exigencies ot 
my country seemed to require me once more to engage 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 229 

in public affairs, an honest conviction of duty super- 
ceded my former resolution, and became my apology 
for deviating from the happy plan which I had 
adopted. 

" If I could have entertained the slightest apprehen- 
sion that the Constitution planned by the Convention 
where I had the honor to preside, might possibly en- 
danger the religious rights of any Ecclesiastical So- 
ciety, certainly I never would have placed my signa- 
ture to it; and if I could now conceive that the Gene- 
ral Government might ever be so administered as to 
render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you 
will be persuaded that no one would be more zealous 
than myself to establish effectual barriers against the 
horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of reli- 
gious persecution. 

" You doubtless remember, for I have often expressed 
my sentiments, that every man conducting himself as a 
good citizen, and being accountable to God alone for 
his religious opinions, ought to be protected in worship- 
ping the Deity according to the dictates of his own con- 
science. Whilst I recollect with satisfaction that the 
religious society of which you are members, has been 
throughout America, uniformly and almost unani- 
mously, the firm friends of civil liberty, and the per- 
severing promoters of our religious revolution, I can- 
not hesitate to believe that they will be faithful sup- 
porters of a free yet efficient General Government. 

"Under this pleasing expectation, I rejoice to assure 
them that they may rely upon my best wishes and en- 
deavors to advance their prosperity. In the meantime, 

20 



230 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

be assured, gentlemen, that I entertain a proper sense 
of your fervent supplications to God for my temporal 
and eternal happiness." 

Several developments in this correspondence ought 
to be noticed. We refer to them in the briefest possible 
terms: 1. The General Committee speak to Washing- 
ton as to an old and familiar personal friend, well 
known to all its members, and in whose intelligence, 
patriotism, and integrity they have in all respects un- 
doubting confidence. 2. Washington speaks to them 
in the same terms of familiar knowledge, reminding 
them of his often-expressed sentiments in their pre- 
sence, as friends and neighbors, which, on the whole 
subject of religious freedom, they well knew to corres- 
pond in every respect with their own. 3. He refers to 
the revolution which the Baptists had effected on reli- 
gious subjects in Virginia as "our religious revolu- 
tion." 4. His compliment to the patriotism of the 
Baptists, as a class, not in Virginia only, but through- 
out America, indicates that it must have been singularly 
conspicuous, and, coming as it did from the Com- 
mander-in-chief of the army, whose opportunities for 
knowledge on the subject were so fall, was honorable 
to them in the highest degree. 5. He expresses his 
belief that the Constitution he had subscribed gave 
sufficient guaranties for the safety of their religious 
rights, but declares his readiness to co-operate with 
them in obtaining by an amendment such further secu- 
rities as might satisfy them entirely. Engaged in a 
cause so excellent in all its bearings, and with Wash- 
ington, Jefferson, Madison, and a host of others of note 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 231 

not much inferior, the Baptists could not, with God's 
blessing, fail of accomplishing their purpose. Accord- 
ingly the amendment which became the supreme law 
of the United States on that subject, was proposed, and 
its adoption was demanded by Virginia. The lan- 
guage suggested by Virginia was as follows : 

"That religion, or the duty which we owe to our 
Creator, and the manner of discharging it, can be di- 
rected only by reason and conviction, not by force or 
violence; and, therefore, all men have an equal, na- 
tural, and inalienable right to the free exercise of reli- 
gion, according to the dictates of conscience, and that 
no particular religious sect or society ought to be fa- 
vored or established by law in preference to others/' * 

This is unmistakable Baptist language, constantly 
uttered by them in this State. The form of the amend- 
ment as found in the Constitution, is as follows: 

"Congress shall make no law respecting an Estab- 
lishment of Religion, or prohibiting the free exercise 
thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the 
press ; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, 
and to petition the government for a redress of griev- 
ances." 

This amendment was reported to the General Com- 
mittee; was received as satisfactory; and that body 
now expressed its cordial approval of the Constitution 
of the Federal Government. It contained, as did the 
Constitution of Virginia, embodied within itself, in the 
form of organic law, the peculiar doctrines of the Bap- 
tists regarding the powers of civil government in the 
* Elliot's State Conventions and Debates, &c, Vol. 2, p. 4So. 



232 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

department of religion. Nothing more was now want- 
ing for the preservation of the peace, security, and per- 
petuation of the nation, but a strict and faithful con- 
formity to the Constitution on the part of the Congress, 
the Judiciary, and the Federal Executive. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 233 

CHAPTER XVII. 

DEFENCE OF THE EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

TJieir position and influence. Their disinterestedness. Education of 
their ministers. Style and elocution of their sermons. Their de- 
fence bequeathed to their successors. 

It is matter of equal surprise and regret that the 
Early Baptists of Virginia have, apparently, been sys- 
tematically depreciated. To this fact we have suffi- 
ciently referred in our introductory chapter. I should 
have performed my task unfaithfully, if before closing 
this brief volume, since I have set forth so fully their 
defects, failures, and errors, I did not also essay at least 
to defend them from those aspersions under which 
their memory has so long labored, and place them be- 
fore the world in their true character. In these 
sketches, it must be conceded, the balances have been 
held with an even hand. Censure, where censure was 
due, has not been withheld, nor has praise been be- 
stowed when it was not richly merited. There are 
those in the religious, as well as in the social and po- 
litical world, who seek to elevate themselves by de- 
pressing others. The Early Baptists of Virginia have, 
accordingly, in certain quarters, been represented as 
indeed eminently religious and conscientious men, es- 
timable in their place, but without refinement, desti- 
tute of learning, and to a great extent bigoted enthu- 
siasts. That such was really their character, many of 

20* 



234 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

the present age have come fully to believe and readily 
to concede. How an impression so utterly unfounded, 
was originated, and by what means it has been kept 
alive amoug the people, are questions of easy solution 
by all those who will be at the pains to study the sub- 
ject. 

The extraordinary success with which God was pleased 
to crown both their spiritual and their civil labors, 
mortified insufferably various influential parties, who 
lost no opportunity, in conversation, in the pulpit, or 
through the press, to impugn their character and posi- 
tion. In this form they continued to carry on persecu- 
tion against them. They could no longer fine, imprison, 
and scourge them, but they could still "tread them un- 
der foot with foul reproaches and most arrogant scorn," 
and in this process they were successful. CoDScious of 
their integrity and power, these reproaches, this arro- 
gant scorn, they did not deign to notice. Perhaps it 
was not ungrateful to them to be considered by the 
proud and ambitious, as were the primitive Christians, 
"the offscouring of all things." Defamations and as- 
persions of this kind remained unanswered. For the 
sake of the effect they were appropriated. Later 
writers entered into their spirit, and copied their style. 
It was the same thing whether they were abused as by 
Burk and Jarrert; misrepresented by Hawks and 
Rice; ignored as by Foote; or caricatured as by Alex- 
ander and Meade. Nor have men been wanting in 
their own ranks who thought themselves at liberty pa- 
tronizingly to apologize for the deficiencies of their Ec- 
clesiastical Fathers, such men as Thomas and Gar- 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 235 

rard, Waller and Harris, Walker and Straughan, to 
whom they themselves, in learning, talents, and elo- 
quence, were as molehills by the side of "high 
Olympus." Thus a form of public sentiment was 
manufactured, which on account of the quarter whence 
it sprung, and because it was unresisted, fixed itself 
tenaciously in the literature of the times, and became 
comparatively permanent. At first, for much of the 
revolutionary spirit that prevailed among the masses, 
and especially for those radical principles of liberty, 
political and religious, so offensive to the clergy and 
their friends, the Baptists were held strictly responsi- 
ble. Not a few of those who subsequently sought to 
appropriate to themselves the chief honors, were in 
those days sufficiently prudent. They had reasons to 
doubt whether the British yoke would after all be 
broken ; and they thought it necessary to leave them- 
selves, in such a case, room safely to retreat. For 
their own security they were especially careful. They 
were not unwilling to see the Baptists throw themselves 
without regard to consequences into the breach, assured 
that if benefit was secured, they should share it, and 
that if suffering was to be endured, they should escape 
it. Had the American Revolution failed, the Baptists 
in this country would undoubtedly have been involved 
in obloquy as deep and as blighting as was that of 
their brethren of a former age, on a similar account in 
Germany. Here as well as there, "the blood of my- 
riads would have expiated their offences." Virginia 
would have been the Minister of America. It was 
precisely, therefore, because they possessed in so emi- 



236 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

nent a degree, intelligence, influence, and moral force, 
— the very qualities afterwards denied them, and for 
the supposed want of which "they have been so long de- 
famed, — and because they exercised these powers so 
successfully, that this feeling of dislike, not to say 
hatred, arose, and since has been cherished with so 
much pertinacity. 

In their direct spiritual labors, in the conversion of 
sinners, the multiplication of churches, and the build- 
ing up of the cause of Christ in Virginia, never since 
the days of the Apostles have any people been more 
successful. And how great were their achievements in 
the cause of political freedom ! We have seen that as 
a body the Baptists of Virginia were the first, whether 
religious or political, to declare in favor of opposing an 
armed resistance to the usurpations of England ; that 
in an address they urged this measure upon the State 
Convention, soon after assembled to consider that sub- 
ject; and that the Convention accordingly instructed 
the delegates of the State in Congress to declare the 
Independence of the United States ; we have seen that 
they succeeded in placing in the Constitution of the 
State, and therefore at the very foundation of the go- 
vernment, a summary of their principles on political 
government, which clearly led to all their subsequent 
triumphs in the department of religious freedom; that 
with the aid of the Presbyterians they secured the pas- 
sage of the law abolishing all penalties against the ex- 
ercise of freedom of opinion and worship; that with 
the Presbyterians, and all others against them, they 
alone defeated the bill which proposed to tax the peo- 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 237 

pie to procure a support for the ministers of all deno- 
minations ; that, aided by the Presbyterians, they ob- 
tained the repeal of the law imposing taxes upon the 
people for the support of the Episcopal clergy, the re- 
peal of the marriage law, and the adoption of the law 
placing the ministers of all denominations upon the 
same official footing, the repeal of the law incorporating 
the Protestant Episcopal Church, and the repeal of all 
the laws in relation to the Established Church of Vir- 
ginia; that, after eight years' toil, they secured the 
adoption of the "Law Establishing Religious Free- 
dom ;" and after more than twenty years, the law or- 
dering the sale of the glebes, and the appropriation of 
the proceeds to the payment of the public debt. They 
did more. They placed a summary of their political 
principles in the Federal Constitution, and, therefore, 
at the very foundation of the General Government, 
which led to the full establishment of religious freedom 
throughout the whole country. They labored long 
and anxiously. Their success was complete. .Their 
opponents employed every art to turn aside or to evade 
their pursuit. Their ground was not relinquished until 
driven from it by force, and then it was given up inch 
by inch, and with the utmost reluctance. All their 
movements were watched by the Baptists with sleepless 
vigilance. They met them gallantly at every point, 
and drove back their legions. Upon the legislative 
attention they continued to press their doctrines, no 
matter how frequently repulsed, until their whole pur- 
pose was completely accomplished. Were those who 
did all this a class of men of whom, without making 



238 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

himself ridiculous, any writer could say : They were 
eminently religious and conscientious men, estimable 
in their place, but without refinement, or position in 
society, destitute of learning, and, to a great extent, 
bigoted enthusiasts? 

The idea may, however, suggest itself, that in the 
representations now submitted injustice has been done 
to the other denominations that then prevailed in ' the 
Commonwealth. It may be answered that, unless we 
include the Quakers, who were very few in numbers, 
and as a church took no part in public affairs, there 
were but four denominations ; the Episcopalians, the 
Methodists, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists. From 
the brow of any patriot of those "times that tried 
men's souls," no matter to what denomination he 
belonged, God forbid that we, or any one else, should 
pluck a single laurel. ISTo, let them all flourish there, 
ever fresh and green. We have given, and ever will 
give, all "honor to whom honor is due." That very 
many of all denominations — Presbyterians, and even 
Episcopalians and Methodists — labored nobly with the 
Baptists, is well known. But it is equally well known 
that, except in the case of the Presbyterians, they 
labored as individuals, and not as churches; and even 
the Presbyterians themselves fell short in three or four 
cases, and in two or three, were in favor of legal 
vassalage, and in opposition to the Baptists. We have 
fully sustained the truth of every statement we have 
made, by ample and unquestionable authorities. To 
show that the Episcopal Church, and the Methodist 
Church, as churches, resisted earnestly, and to the end, 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 239 

all changes in the government, and sought by every 
means in their power to retain their hold upon its 
patronage, we will once more quote from Dr. Hawks. 
Referring to the Methodist Church he says : — 

" They claimed to be nothing more than members 
of a religious society formed within the bosom of 
the Established Church at home, and extended to 
America. The language of the Methodist preachers 
was that 'All who left the Church, left the Method- 
ists/ Nay, such was the avowed attachment of the 
Society, that in public opinion it was so far identified 
with the Church, as to share with it the odium which 
from political causes, then rested on the Establishment 
in Virginia. The Methodists were suspected of being 
inimical to the liberties of America. This suspicion 
in the minds of many, originated in nothing but the 
known adherence of the Society to an Ecclesiastical 
system which had the support of the civil power."* 

In another place referring to the various petitions to 
the Legislature, already sufficiently described, Dr. 
Hawks says: — 

"In these petitions all classes in the community 
joined, with the exception of Churchmen and Method- 
ists. These sent in their petitions for the continuance 
of the Establishment." f 

The position of the Presbyterians has been before 
defined with sufficient clearness. In some of the con- 
flicts of those days, they, and especially the Hanover 
Presbyterians, battled nobly. In the overthrow of the 
colossal Establishment they fought gallantly. It is, 

* Hist. Prot. Ep. Ch., in Va., p. 133. f Idem, p 139. 



240 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

therefore, the more a matter of surprise and regret, 
that they indicated a desire to be themselves estab- 
lished with others, as the religion of the State ; and 
that they sought the taxation of the people, for the 
support of their own ministers. Truly, therefore, did 
Dr. Semple say of them, that "The ministry and the 
people were so much at variance as to paralyze all 
their exertions." 

The Baptists throughout the whole struggle present- 
ed an unbroken front. They were calm, modest, re- 
spectful; but firm, immovable, untiring, indomitable; 
deterred by no onsets; disheartened by no defeats, 
Yet they are gravely charged, in learned and popular 
volumes, with being influenced in all they did by such 
motives only as overweening hatred to the Establish- 
ment, and an ardent zeal to advance their own interests 
as a sect ; by a general restless and radical spirit ; and 
as being the tools merely of political intriguers.* 

All these and such like imputations, severally and 
as a whole, from whatever quarter, are here repelled, 
in the name and on behalf of the sainted dead. They 
were capable of being influenced by no such motives ; 
they were impelled to action by no such feelings ; they 
cherished no such malignity towards their fallen perse- 
cutors ; no such spirit of revenge animated their pro- 
ceedings ; they were the tools of no such political party 
leaders ; they sought for themselves no such peculiar 
advantages; they determined to share with their 

* Hawks' History, &c, pp. 121, 122, 137, 138. Dr. John H. Eice's 
pamphlets. Semple's History, &c, pp. 245-254. Bishop Meade's Old 
Families, and Old Churches. 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 241 

fellow-citizens, whether friends or opponents, and did 
share with them, all the triumphs they gained of truth, 
of honor, of justice, and of civil and religious liberty. 
They maintained, in all that they did, no novelty, but 
only those doctrines which their fathers had advocated 
in every land, and for seventeen centuries, and in 
defence of which had been sacrificed millions of trea- 
sure, and tens of thousands of the purest lives ever 
looked upon by the sun from heaven. 

The ministry especially, of the Early Baptists of 
Virginia, have been reproached as having been unedu- 
cated men. 

This feature is nauseously prominent in the frequent 
references to them by all denominations, but by Pres- 
byterians and Episcopalians especially. They desire 
their ministry to be judged by the best specimens 
among them. That of the Baptists, they insist upon 
judging by the worst. Were the Baptists even of 
those days indifferent to the advantages of education ? 
The amplest proofs to the contrary have, in a previous 
chapter, been submitted. But were the Baptist minis- 
ters of those times really uneducated men? If by 
education, classical learning only is meant, then not a 
few of them were educated, since they were classically 
learned, being graduates of colleges in this country, or 
in Europe. I will not say that they were, on that 
account, professionally, more learned than many others 
whose literary and scientific advantages had been less 
ample, but with whom they delighted to labor in the 
cause of Christ. Cast your eyes along their thick and 
serried ranks. Whom do you find there? Stearns, 

21 



242 EARLY BAPTISTS 01 VIRGINIA. 

Thomas, the Marshalls, Harris, the Craigs, Armstead, 
Baker, the Wallers, Ford, Leland, Toler, Clay, 
Greenwood, Nelson, Barrow, Williams, Webber, 
Walker, and hundreds of others. Whence came they? 
From the pulpits of the Episcopal, the Presbyterian, 
the Congregational, and other churches ; from their 
seats in the Colonial Legislature; from the roll of 
officers in the army ; from the chairs of instruction in 
the schools ; from the offices of the justices and sher- 
iffs in the counties ; and from the broad fields of the 
wealthy planter. The strikingly illiterate among 
them were, perhaps, not more numerous in proportion 
than the incorrigibly dull of other denominations, who 
had been dragged through a college curriculum ; and 
were practically fully as useful. 

The great mass of Baptist ministers of that day, 
were, however, not classically educated. How could 
they have been ? Where were the schools, to which 
they might have resorted for that purpose? They did 
not exist in the country. Still, their learning was not 
inferior to that of the best portions of the people. 
Were men of the other professions all classically edu- 
cated? Was Patrick Henry classically educated? 
Were Bland, Pendleton, Carrington, classically edu- 
cated? Was Washington himself classically educated? 
Yet who has ever reproached them as uneducated 
men? Professionally, they were all educated men. 
And professionally, the Baptist ministers of that day 
were educated men. Their erudition in the gospel 
was as profound and varied, as was that of their great 
contemporaries in the law and in politics. Nor were 



EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 243 

they in any sense their inferiors. The Pharisees re- 
garded the Apostles as " unlearned, and ignorant 
men/' and with as little reason as have Pedobaptist 
divines the ministry of the Early Baptists of Virginia. 
That they had not the theological training of that age, 
we have reason to be profoundly grateful, since there 
existed not then upon the face of the earth, an institu- 
tion of this class, Papist or Protestant, the teaching 
of which was not radically and incurably corrupt. 
From the Bible alone, which they studied daily with 
clear heads, warm hearts, and fervent prayer for the 
divine guidance, they derived their theology. Of the 
true sense of the word of God, they therefore knew 
more, and could consequently better teach it, than all 
the doctors of the Sorbonne, of Geneva, of Witten- 
berg, of Oxford, or of Cambridge. 

It is assumed and declared, that the sermons of 
these Early Baptist ministers of Virginia, were in- 
ferior in matter; that their style and elocution were 
repulsive; and that, even for that day, their manners, 
in and out of the pulpit, were rude and offensive. 

That there were among them some individuals ob- 
noxious to these imputations, and that the same was 
true to an equal extent in proportion to numbers, ot 
all the other denominations, there can be no doubt. 
But when they are applied to them as a class, 
they become preposterous, defamatory, and malignant. 
Baptist ministers generally, destitute of learning or 
eloquence, shallow, rude, repulsive! Why then, it 
may be asked, were their discourses always heard by 
immense crowds, who were swayed by their strange 



244 EARL Y BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

power, and agitated to an extent never exceeded in 
this or any other country ? Why were the splendid 
parish churches — whose numerous magnificent ruins 
stand to this day in many of the lower counties of Vir- 
ginia, the mouldering monuments of colonial pride 
and regal extravagance — forsaken of their polished 
and courtly congregations, who eagerly followed these 
coarse, rude, plebeian preachers, and hung upon their 
words with rapt and delighted attention ? And why 
did they by hundreds unite with their churches? 
By what unknown and unaccountable power, did 
these same coarse, uneducated, rude, plebeian preachers 
overthrow the triple-walled citadel of the Establish- 
ment, sever all the firmly established relations between 
Church and State; carry with them in their blind, 
ignorant fanaticism almost the whole people; and fix 
their political principles ineradicably in the govern- 
ment of the State and of the United States ? All this 
they did without learning, polish, or influence, and in 
despite of all their ignorance, coarseness, and rude 
plebeian fanaticism ! Contending against insuperable 
disadvantages, their achievements were more and 
greater than ever have been accomplished in any other 
age or country, even by the great, the mighty, and the 
wise ! And yet these monstrous defamations have 
been heard and read for the last fifty years by the peo- 
ple, without rebuke and without contempt ! 

Some of these early Baptist ministers were certainly 
"no orators." But where is the denomination, every 
one of whose ministers is a Whitefield, a Hall, or a 
Chalmers? Have any other churches in Virginia 



EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 245 

produced ministers superior in eloquence to Stearns and 
Walker, Straughan and Lunsford, Andrew Broaddus 
and John Kerr? We say nothing of such men as Wil- 
liams and Harris, Marshall and Toler, and in later 
times, Semple and Dabbs, Clopton and Goodall. 
These and such as these possessed an amount of mental 
vigor, of intellectual cultivation, of professional re- 
search and pulpit power, that justly placed them on a 
level, to say the least, with any other ministers of their 
day and country. If by eloquence is meant the ability 
to attract and please, to persuade, to move the people 
to action, then these were men of unsurpassed elo- 
quence. With amazing success did they declare 

"Truths of power, 
In words immortal. Not such words as flash 
From the fierce demagogue's unthinking rage, 
To madden for a moment, and expire ; 
Nor such as the rapt orator imbues 
With warmth of facile sympathy, and moulds 
To mirrors radiant with fair images, 
To grace the noble fervor of an hour ; 
But words which have the spirit of great deeds 
Winged for the future." 

To the Virginia Baptists of the present age, to whom 
we have shown who they were, what they did, and 
how they have been assailed, the Early Baptists of 
Virginia have bequeathed the custody of their illustri- 
ous name. To our fidelity they have confided their 
sacred honor. We have entered into their labors. We 
have inherited the sunny fields in which they achieved 
their conquests. These fields are now all radiant with 
golden fruit, and fragrant flowers, and resplendent 



246 EARLY BAPTISTS OF VIRGINIA. 

beauty. Shall we prove recreant to the holy trust thus 
confided to our keeping? Why should we longer re- 
frain to claim for them their just place in history, and, 
by a proper exhibition of the truth, drive back their 
unscrupulous assailants? He who can coldly, silently, 
heartlessly, permit their noble bearing, their generous 
sacrifices, their exalted deeds, to be buried in darkness 
or tarnished by the breath of calumny, deserves not the 
name of Baptist. What then shall we think of some 
of their degenerate sons, who assist in detracting them, 
and who themselves with parricidal hand essay to strike 
them down ! They deserve, and will in due time re- 
ceive, the execrations of all good men. He who is un- 
true to his own family, domestic or ecclesiastical, can- 
not be true to his God. Let no such man be trusted. 

More and more precious with each passing year be- 
comes the memory of these revered Fathers. No effec- 
tive means, moral or material, will we permit to remain 
unimproved which may give point and impressiveness 
to that important lesson, commended no less by the in- 
stincts of the great universal heart than by the testi- 
mony of all experience, that any people who would 
hope for the blessing of God, insure their own honor, 
and obtain future success, must preserve as an inviola- 
ble treasure the broad segis upon which are emblazoned 
the virtues and achievements of their forefathers. 



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